FROM CRUISE
MISSILES TO CURSORS:
THE EVOLVING
FACE OF THE HARDWARE OF WARFARE
US Military
and private sector networks under almost constant attack from China
National Security & Intelligence Special Report
(Tuesday May 28, 2013
Washington, DC) In this day of
ultra-high tech warfare, drones, “smart” bombs and all the sophisticated
military hardware and software in the United States arsenal, why is the most
recent episode of Chinese hackers breaching some of most sensitive defense
networks not the front page leading story in every newspaper and every newscast
in the country? Given how much of our
national security and military systems exist in cyberspace, the fact that Chinese
hackers have once again been able to gain entry to these networks and steal
information about our most closely guarded secrets arguably, can be perceived
as an act of “war”. This latest
intrusion by the Chinese into our military networks has perhaps been the single
most significant incursion of its kind.
For years now there have been
officials in the Pentagon, FBI and CIA warning of the real and present threat
of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor”; a massive sneak attack on a particular military
network that could render some of the most advanced weaponry in our arsenal
useless. The same threats exist to the
networks controlled by the private sector such as the big banks and financial
institutions that conduct billions of transactions daily in nanosecond long
bursts through the intricately interconnected global economy. The private sector in America also owns
virtually all our utilities, electrical grids, water delivery systems, transportation
that moves people and goods around the world.
So much of Americas vital infrastructure that is totally reliant on
computer hardware and software is privately held that anyone could suffer a cyber-attack
and not even report it to government officials until well after the fact. In this sense a cyber-attack is similar to
the “not immediately seen’” dynamics of a biological weapons strike. In both cases it would take days if not weeks
for evidence of a strike to manifest itself.
Conventional weapons are
overt; their affects immediately seen and felt.
This is simply not so if an attack were to be launched by a foreign or,
for that matter, a domestic adversary.
Yes, given the particulars of any given malicious foray into our
networks, it might be immediately obvious that someone has done something. But it could take long days before the nature
of what would seem to be some ‘glitch’ or systemic dysfunction was in fact
recognized for what it really was – an attack from the outside. Just as if a biological agent were to be
introduced into a population it would only be recognized after the incubation
period of the specific biological agent passed and people began appearing in doctors’
offices and hospitals in unusual numbers with very similar symptoms. The medical surveillance effort that all
hospitals participate in since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001
serves as the mechanism by which a biological (or chemical) attack has been
perpetrated. These are just some of the
challenges that keep government and private sector security officials up late
at night. Since time is always of the
essence when an attack or violent crime of any kind has been made, the very
nature and dynamics of the cyber world and epidemiology take more valuable time
to reveal themselves.
Vigilance, constant, rigorous
monitoring of our networks is the single most important step that can be taken
to thwart would-be hackers. Despite best
efforts up to now the Chinese, Iranians, and a host of “non-state” entities
have made numerous incursions into all of our networks. Some of these incursions appeared to be
simple exploratory raids to test the vulnerability of a network while others,
such as this latest full frontal assault by China, was a blatant act of
hostility and theft. The intelligence
they extracted from the military networks they breached provides them with a
wealth of information that affords them a distinct advantage if we were to
deploy certain weapons systems in a conflict with them.
A LINE IN THE SILICONE
Presidents and Prime Ministers
are fond of using metaphor to describe criteria for military action. In 1990 then President George H.W. Bush drew
a “line in the sand” indicating how far Saddam Hussein’s invading Army could go
in the invasion of neighboring Kuwait before Bush intervened militarily. More recently Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu showed a chart to the UN General Assembly with a “red line” that
allegedly represented how close Iran is to having nuclear capabilities. All sorts of DMZ’s, red zones, buffer zones,
security fences and other similar boundaries are easily erected and defined in
the physical world. The question is fast
becoming for this President, what it the threshold criteria that must be met
before he takes some form of action against these hostile Chinese cyber warfare
raids? What is the proverbial “line in
the silicon” to be drawn and where does it exist in terms of constituting
predicates for retaliation? If the Administration, Pentagon of Military
Cyber Command has established such a “tipping point” they have yet to say so
publically. Perhaps there has been back
channel communications from our State Department and the White House to the
Chinese government; at least one would hope so.
Arguably and, to many in the Military, China has already crossed that
nebulous line.
An equally salient question to
be asked is what sort of line in the silicon has been established in the
private sector? Clearly this is a very
important question because, as previously written, the private sector owns and
operates the majority of our computer networks and many of them have already
been attacked. There is the possibility
if not probability that the private sector would retaliate covertly without so
much as informing the appropriate government agencies they have done so. After all, they have so much at stake; the
security of the entire global banking, investing and financing apparatus is
just as important to protect in many ways as are the military systems. Any large scale attack on the financial
sector could immediately send our already shaky economy plummeting into rapid
ruin. Such an attack would be as effective in crippling America as was the
atrocities of September 11, 2001.
Fortunately, in that case, the financial and transportation institutions
recovered quickly after only a short delay.
CURSORS AND CRUISE MISSILES
It may very well be that our
ill-fated, ill-conceived, preemptive war of choice in Iraq will mark the last
war where there was a large conventional fighting force deployed overseas to
fight an asymmetrical war from city to city, often from street to street and
across vast open valleys and desserts.
Our technologic superiority and advancement has effectively all but
eliminated the need for such full-scale troop deployments. Certainly conflicts ahead will at some point
require our troops to do battle in far off lands but they will be a much “leaner”
fighting force consisting primarily of Special Operations Forces. As is demonstrated weekly our utilization of unmanned drone aircraft is a very
effective means of both offense and defense.
(The legality and morality of armed drone strikes in sovereign nations
has yet to be fully vetted. See http://broodingcynyx.blogspot.com/2013/05/obama-redfines-war-on-terror.html
).
We have for many decades
possessed the capability to engage, neutralize and kill combatants – be they
nation/state armies or terrorists – from afar.
From the huge nuclear stockpile assembled throughout the Cold War to
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), Long Range Cruise Missiles and the
entire array of ever advanced “smart bombs”, Laser Guided Munitions, satellite
based reconnaissance, drones and all the rest, our technology has made it
possible to remove our troops from the field as never before imagined. There are positive and negative outcomes that
are still being defined as new metrics are required to assess their effectiveness,
efficiency, and costs. Being able to “reach
out and touch someone” from half a world away is a daunting reality to our adversaries
no matter who they may be. But, in this
age of asymmetry, as we have seen, a small band of committed individuals with
some technological skill, funding and basic computer equipment can be as lethal
as any physical weapon.
All levels of our government
from the Military, Intelligence, National security and Law Enforcement agencies
need to step up their games and recognize what these repeated hacking episodes represent;
they are more than warning “shots across the bow”. They pose a real and present danger to our
security just as does any belligerent provocative military actions conducted by
a nation who opposes us for whatever reason.
TAGS: CHINESE HACKERS, CHINA HACKS INTO US MILITARY NETWORKS, CHINA
STEALS SENSATIVE WEAPONS PLATFORMS INTELLIGENCE, CYBER-WARFARE, NATIONAL
SECURITY CHALLENGES, CHANGING FACE OF WARFARE, PRIVATE SECTOR NETWORK
VULNERABILITIES, PENTAGON, CIA, DOD, DOI, FBI, NSA, NRO, DRONES
LINKS: (Updated)
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