Cyber Warfare And The United States

Cyber espionage is the act of attempting to penetrate an adversarial system for the purposes of extracting sensitive or protected data of either social or technical in nature. They are illicit activities that range from the commercial and economic to the political and strategic. They include small nuisance attacks to matters of high magnitude and importance like the national security and intelligence (Cornish 2012). Chinese cyber espionage has continued to escalate in recent years; it has continued to gain attention in many institutions including the media, the technology and information services industries, in scientific research and innovations, and as well as the general public. All these institutions are aware that china is taking part in the systematic development of cyber techniques that they intentionally use to invade international organizations, national governments, commercial companies, universities, and research institutes (Cornish, 2012).

Since the onset of the first packet switching event that many believe to be beginning of the internet, no other technology besides the printing press has ever transformed the ability to deliver information. Although the internet is used by a large percentage of the civilized world, few Americans realize how vital cyberspace is to our national infrastructure. Today, we are faced with even more threats although it has been a recognized problem since 2009, when President Barrack Obama said “The cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. It’s also clear that we’re not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country (Obama, 2009).” Every industry that operates in the United States is dependent on the internet for some aspect of their business. Commerce, transportation, financial institutions, military, as well as industrial control systems are all interconnected. This interconnectedness has created vulnerabilities within their infrastructure that have increasingly become targets of terrorists, script kiddies, foreign governments and hackers of all types.

The issue of strong cybersecurity efforts in the United States has been especially topical in 2017, and on the rise over the last few years. The Equifax breach and the breaching of the Democratic Party during the 2016 Presidential Election are recent examples that are bringing up the conversation of cybersecurity and make citizens curious of whether or not the United States government has plans in place to deter these events from happening. People are already worried about the damages these attacks can cause with consequences such as stolen information or monetary loss of close to five billion dollars in 2017 alone (cybersecurityventures.com). Although there are already solid plans in place to raise cybersecurity efforts in the United

Most ISIS practice customs from the 7th century, but the methods they use to fight a war are 21st century techniques. ISIS have an advanced computer network that uses social media to attract terrorists worldwide to help them attack countries like the United States. Many countries have been victims of cyber attacks but may not realize it until long after the security breach occurred.

In the sixth week of CIS610 – Information Warfare, we continued looking at the policies, governance, and operation of nation state information and cyber warfare. Since week five and six were combined I had already completed the readings which were required for week five and six. Along with this in week five I also completed the discussion board post and the rough draft for the major assignment. Last week in my journal I discussed the discussion board post which I created and the reading assignment and chose to leave the major assignment out of my week five journal so I would have something to discuss in week six.

In a documentary by Admiral Vern (2002), “the events of September 11, 2001 tragically illustrated that the promise of peace and security in the 21st Century is fraught with profound dangers”. The US foreign policies and interest in key geographic regions of the world sparks controversies resulting in state funded cyber attacks, cyber espionage and terrorism against the United States and its allied nations. When several attempts to cripple the United States and its allied nations through negotiations failed, enemy states and nefarious groups have shifted their focus to cyber attacks and cyber espionage. According to Gady (2016), “China continues cyber espionage against the United States”. Drezner (2014), “Washington and Beijing hardly agree on everything, but they agree on the big things, like maintaining an open global economy, reducing the likelihood of a military confrontation, and tackling climate change”.

Lindsay decries the “[e]xaggerated fears about the paralysis of digital infrastructure and growing concerns over competitive advantage [which] exacerbate the spiral of mistrust”(41). The differing positions on policy implementation expose the greatest difference in the method of the dove and the internationalist perspectives. While the two policies share a focus on diplomacy and American international moral standing, the internationalists favor an active policy agenda. In addition, dove’s national focus does not clearly emphasize the role of the United States on the world stage instead implicitly argues that the US should serve as the Western prototype and other nations should follow its example through enacting similar domestic reforms. Lindsey’s mention of “exaggerated fears” pairs with a dove critique of the perceived over militarization pursued by the hawk position. On the domestic front, Spade does not mention civil liberties and argues for strong national executive to undergo necessary but unpopular reforms. Unlike Spade, Lindsay briefly mentions the balance between privacy and security. The difference in perspectives relates to the differing views on the fundamental problem of China. The hawks believe that China is to be ultimately feared, while the doves argue that there are unpublicized American strengths that keep the status quo in

China is responsible for cyber espionage against the U.S. resulting in significant damage to the U.S. economy. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property found that, China is responsible for up to 70% of incurred losses of the U.S. (Navarro 2016). The Center for Strategic and

The United States is under attack. To be exact, the nation’s power grid is under attack in the form of cyber warfare. On May 21st, 2013 Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Henry A Waxman published a report that provided the findings from information that they had requested from over 150 utility companies (of which 60% responded). More than a dozen utilities reported “daily, constant, or frequent attempted cyber-attacks” (Markey & Waxman) with one utility reporting that they have about 10,000 attempted attacks per month!

Pfleeger, S. Pfleeger, and Margulies (2015) outline possible examples of cyber warfare between Canada and China (p. 844). According to Pfleeger, S. Pfleeger, and Margulies (2015), “the Canadian government revealed that several of its national departments had been victims of a cyber attack…” (p. 844). Eventually, the attack was unofficially traced to a computer in China (p. 844). Cyber warfare can be used negatively and positively. It is evident that China was seeking to gain protected information form Canada. Although a purpose of cyber warfare, it is not a conventional way of obtaining information. Additionally, cyber warfare can be used to collect intelligence on an enemy. Anyone seeking to gather intelligence on another individual or group can launch a cyber attack that gains access to protected files. This could be used to help future militant operations or expose critical information. Lastly, cyber warfare can be used to test systems internally. Acting with no malicious intent, “insiders” can utilizing cyber warfare tactics to attack their own cyber security barriers in order to test the strength of their systems. Seeking to expose the vulnerabilities in a system that contains important assets without actually harming the assets provides the system a diagnosis of what needs to be strengths and fixed. Identifying the problem or threats before an actual attack can ultimately save the protected

Tomorrow’s terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb (National Research Council1). The United States Department of States defined terrorism as: “…premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.” Terrorism not only occurs on the real life today but also on the internet. As the technology rapidly developed, there is an increase in the usage of internet, the threat comes along the way. Due to the occurrence of internet terrorism-generating fears to the public, the term “Cyberterrorism” was coined by Barry Collin in the 1980’s (Cyberterrorism Defined). The definition of cyberterrorism differs from various legal systems and government

Private organizations in the United States come under attack weekly if not daily and their cyber defenses must be kept up to par otherwise there will be an extreme loss of information and resources. FBI director James Comey can be quoted as saying “There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who 've been hacked by the Chinese and those who don 't know they 've been hacked by the Chinese” (Comey). Comey can also be quoted as having said that, “China was seeking to obtain "information that 's useful to them so they don 't have to invent" (Comey). This stolen information can be used against these companies when brokering a trade deal or even Chinese companies could begin manufacturing American goods illegally

Cyber security is a major concern for every department, business, and citizen of the United States because technology impacts every aspect of our daily lives. The more we use technology the more complacent, we get with the information that is stored within our cyber networks. The more complacent, we get, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-attacks because we fail to update the mechanisms that safeguard our information. Breaches to security networks are detrimental to personal, economic, and national security information. Many countries, like Russia, China, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, now have the abilities and technology to launch cyber-attacks on the United States. In the last five years there have been several attacks on cyber systems to gain access to information maintained by major businesses and the United States Government. Cyber-attacks cause serious harm to the United States’ economy, community, and the safety, so we need to build stronger cyber security mechanisms. Based on my theoretical analysis, I recommend the following:

The branches of the military, for a couple generations, have always been the Army, Navy, Air force, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard; however, in an ever evolving digital world, the notion that outer space would be the next military front is being rapidly replaced by the idea that cyber space will be the next arms race. The United States has been defending attacks on their infrastructure day after day, night after night, when one hacker on one side of the world sleeps, another takes their place to attempt to compromise the US government. The motives may range from a political ‘hacktivist’ trying to prove a point, to an economic spy, trying to gain a competitive edge on its more upstart rivals, to an attempt to control the United States

The damage of a full-fledged cyber attack would be devastating, the destruction would be unparalleled to any other tragedy that has occurred America. Since technology is responsible for providing America with vital entities and resources, an unadulterated cyber attack would nearly fail the American economy; this is what is known as critical systems failure. Weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks present imminent threats of critical systems failure. Although currently Americas’ critical infrastructures are coordinated by controlled systems, majority of these systems are indeed connected to the American cyberspace. This exposes one of America’s most vulnerable spot amidst cyber security. Another major vulnerable spot within the nations IT security would be the geographical physical location for each of Americas primary infrastructures, as well as their productivity. Due to the proximal locations, the major infrastructures could very well be infiltrated by one efficient CNA.