Are cyber security and international cooperation at odds?
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It has quickly transformed the way we live our lives, from the way we communicate to the way we do business. The Internet has evolved rapidly and with it the threats to international peace and security.
As the United States engages in bilateral talks with Russia and prepares to speak with the United Nations committee on disarmament and international security in January to discuss cyber security and cyber warfare, the idea of an international framework governing the rules of cyberspace has taken on a renewed spirit in public discussions.
In the past, the United States kept all cyber-talk to the UN's economic forum. But moving the discussions into a realm of security is necessary, said Scott Weber, the former counsel to President George W. Bush's Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
"It is a very important acknowledgment, that above all the spectrum of hazards that a country would need to deal with, whether it's a hurricane or a terror attack ... cyber-attacks happen almost on a daily basis," he told Xinhua. "But we've almost become numb to it because it's so frequent."
Yet admitting that cyber-attacks happen frequently is like airing one's dirty laundry. No country wants to openly talk about it for fear of giving away national security secrets to those who might be the perpetrators.
Weber painted a picture where countries must walk a fine tightrope and perform a charade in the delicate balance of sharing information while not giving away top-secret defense and offensive strategies.
"There's sharing and then there's sharing," he laughed.
When does a cyber-attack constitue an "act of war"?
A geopolitically significant development, cyber-attacks have the ability to tear into a country that has woven its national and economic security into the seams of vast computer systems and the Internet. Whether a hacker steals information or implants a virus, the technology offers the chance to sabotage the world's mightiest powers.
Last month, the antivirus software and computer security company McAfee released its fifth annual Virtual Criminology Report, concluding that politically motivated cyber attacks have increased in a number of countries, including the United States.
"Over the next 20 to 30 years, cyber-attacks will increasingly become a component of war," William Crowell, a former deputy director of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), said in the report. "What I can't foresee is whether networks will be so pervasive and unprotected that cyberwar operations will stand alone."
The U.S. experiences hundreds of hacks a day on its military command centers. Last year, someone was able to breech the CENTCOM network, a military system fighting two wars, and stay inside for several days, according to the Pentagon. It's believed that foreign spies left corrupted thumbnail drives or memory sticks, where they were later inserted into a CENTCOM computer.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that insurgents hacked into U.S. military Predator drones -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- monitoring targets in Iraq. The Russian software, easily downloaded from the Internet for under 30 U.S. dollars, allowed insurgents to tap into U.S. communication links, said the newspaper.
U.S. Congress has taken note, allocating 17 billion U.S. dollars for a national cyber security initiative, and the Department of Defense has nominated Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, head of the NSA, to head a new military command tasked with offensive and defensive cyberwar.
But as more businesses go online and build their economic engines on the foundation of computer systems, they too become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Public companies, banks, electrical power grids, nuclear power plants, water treatment plants -- all are susceptible to viruses that can bring whole systems crashing down, and with them the fabric of society.
In 2005, a series of power outages in Brazil threw millions of people into darkness and put a grinding halt on business. According to some reports, the world's largest iron ore producer had seven plants knocked offline, costing the company 7 million U. S. dollars.
Targeting non-military institutions and entities is fair game these days, challenging the traditional notions of war.
"The lines are becoming more blurred with time," said Weber.
