The world is moving closer and closer to catastrophic cyber warfare. The latest rise hacking for political cause is pointing us to believe that more severe attack is just around the corner.
Attack on al-Qaeda (September 2008)
Al-Qaeda’s main online forums have been taken offline apparently by government agencies or funded by them. The forum was removed online on September 10th and they couldn’t even restore it back online. They have issued a statement saying that there are some technical issues and not to trust any look alike sites.
Attack on Georgia (May-September 2008)
“Emerging Cyber Threats Report for 2009” reports attack on Georgia by Russian technical experts during their recent military action to support their ground troops. The report indicates that the Russians blocked the internet traffic from Georgia though Turkey and slowed down the traffic through Russia making it unusable. Rostelecom controlled by Russian government and COMSTAR blocked traffic to Georgian IP space. Researched observed that route hijacking, brute force server compromise, data theft, DDoS attacking, cache poisoning attacks, defacement and hosting of fake Georgian web pages etc were also carried out.
US –China cyber cold war (2006-2008)
The cold war which lasted for decades between Russia and USA is now in its new form. USA and China are blaming each other for numerous cyber attacks that happen in both countries in the last two years. Chinese hackers are successful enough to intrude into many of the critical US operations and launch small to medium scale attacks. Though it’s not clear if it’s a government sponsored attack or by a group of technical junkies, it’s eminent that a full blown cyber war is just around the corner.
The low cost of cyber warfare, lack of regulations and defense less encourage countries to move to cyber warfare than physical. As the world moves ahead in moving all the critical infrastructure under computer control, a cyber war in 21st century could be more destructive than the nuclear war of the last century.
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One Response:
November 18th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I think it’s high time cyberWars should be discussed on a round table with all concerned parties present. Cyber laws (which will favour all concerned parties)should be enacted and thoroughly implemented for the continuance of world peace.
If it was possible to regulate atomic arms, then cyberwars is child’s play before a united world. Thanks