The Cyber Skills Of Iran Essay

The most recents detections of how cyber warfare is inevitably coming was the accusations of Russia hacking the the Democratic National Committee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email’s releasing damaging evidence against them which ultimately lead to Donald Trump being named the President of The United States (Diamond, 2016). The effects of cyber warfare have leaked over in to televise series, forming shows such as CSI cyber, and the gaming world, Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare. Neglect regarding cyber security can: undermine the reputation of both the government and elected officials; force unacceptable expenditures associated with the cost of cleaning up after security breaches; cripple governments' abilities to respond to a wide variety of homeland security emergency situations or recover from natural or man-made threats; and disable elected officials' ability to govern (Lohrmann, 2010). Classified information such as overseas operators and attacks, missile locations, response plans and weaknesses, and much more cripples America’s ability to defend itself from enemies both foreign and domestic. To combat cyber terrorism is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. In an article titled “Why Cybersecurity Information Sharing Is A Positive Step for Online Security” it is discussed that under CISA, the Department of Homeland security will have more responsibility for domestic cybersecurity. CISA’s fundamental purpose is to better enable cybersecurity information to be shared between the private and public sectors (2016). The sharing of threat information between public and private sectors can give the the United States a head start by allowing them to share information rapidly and more often to combat enemy threats while still providing safety for privacy and civil

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).

The intelligence community has undergone some major changes in the past thirty years. During the cold war this section of defense had massive funding. There needed to be an ability to predict what the Soviet Union was planning to do and what they were actually doing in order to prevent a nuclear war. After this period in time ended there was again large changes. The budget to the intelligence community was cut astronomically because there was perceived to be less of a threat to the United States (“9/11 Intelligence Failures Report”, 2002). This misperception was actually due to a lack of ability to shift to a new changing threat. This mind set allowed many unwelcomed risks to enter into the United States.

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”.

The hawk perspective laid out by Colonel Jayson Spade in China’s Cyber Power and America’s National Security, focuses on American conventional military supremacy. Colonel Spade paints cyber tactics as tools to extend American military

General Clapper, the United States Director of National Intelligence, recently briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the worldwide threat assessment. His brief addressed the implications of technology on national security, and characteristics of the nation’s leading threat actors that include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state actors. The entirety of the briefing demonstrates that the United States will face numerous increasingly complex national security challenges into the foreseeable future.

Over the past few years we have seen a massive surge in terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, which has forced the US government to take action in hopes of preventing future attacks. Part of this action has come in the form of increased online surveillance on US citizens. At first glance, the danger in this is not immediately apparent, but with the information leaked by Edward Snowden it is becoming all too clear what kind of danger this represents. To be perfectly clear, the purpose of this paper is not to delve into conspiracy theories about the government using this surveillance to keeps its citizens in check like some Orwellian dystopian society. Rather, this is simply to highlight how dangerous the methods used in this type of surveillance is to cyber security, and how inefficient it is at stopping terrorism.

After the horrific attacks of 9/11, the U.S. Government created the Department of Homeland Security, which then created over 220 different organizations and agencies to combat terrorism and collect intelligence. These agencies and organizations receive orders and directions from the National Intelligence Agency, and employees over 850,000 government employees with an approximate annual budget of $100 million. With a large annual budget and multiple employees working domestically and with foreign policy, the intelligence function has changed dramatically over the last decade and a half. Foreign governments have scrutinized the National Intelligence (NI) community for monitoring foreign militaries, and their government’s intentions

The JIE considers that the future security environment will continue to feature a range of adversaries attempting to shape political behavior by conducting damaging or disruptive cyber-attacks. This is a consequence of the globalization and cannot be stopped, however timely contention is needed. The Joint Force must minimize the consequences of threatened or successful cyberattacks against the United States, its allies, and partners by conducting Military Support to Cyber

Adam Segal’s “The Hacked World Order” reveals many prevalent issues in today’s technologically centered society. Starting at Year Zero, June 2012 to June 2013, the battle over cyberspace witnessed world-changing cyberattacks. This was accomplished due to the fact that nearly 75% of the world’s population has easy access to a mobile phone, and the Internet connects nearly 40% of the total human population, which is nearly 2.7 billion people. With that being said, cyberattacks are becoming a more realistic form of terror.

Iran’s nuclear program can be traced back to the 1980s when it was at war with Iraq. It sought develop a nuclear program as an anticipatory move that would defend against Saddam’s Iraq’s nuclear aspirations. Prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran’s government, which was then in favor of the US due to its alignment to US policies was developing a nuclear program, but it was annulled as a result of the revolution. The US, along with its allies, is wary of the current nuclear program in Iran. There have been many approaches to curb this threat from Iran’s nuclear program. The most recent and notable one is the Iran nuclear deal, which will inevitably prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The main US allies who are against the Iran

The United States government needs to focus less on physical warfare and more on cyber warfare.

Cyber warfare requires intellect not military might and a country does not have to be a military superpower to wage a cyber attack. Cyber attack tracks are much easier to cover and are easily attributable to another entity. While cyber attacks are only recently been declared by our military and political leadership as acts of war, compared to an actual physical military attack on another country life can go on as usual for most of the citizens on both sides of the conflict without the slightest idea that their country is at war. It does not cost billions of dollars to run or manage and is hardly a long-term commitment of hundreds of thousands of troops and the logistics to support them and their equipment at the front lines. In case of Iran, a cyber attack was the most viable option available to global powers because the Iranian regime did not hesitate to make threats against the United States and Israel should it have been attacked militarily to make it stop trying to produce nuclear

From the advent of the Internet, there came with it the opportunity for any of its users to have access to any information they seeked right at their fingertips. With this access; entertainment, market opportunities, educational information, productivity, and global communication were able to grow and flourish, however with these gains seen came with it the weakening of the once secure national strength seen in nations. In the last two decades cyberspace has been defined as the 'fifth battleground’ for international relations, with the aspects of cyber war, cyber terrorism, and cybercrime as some of the largest threats to the security of the national and international community. (Popović, 2013) With this ‘fifth battleground’ of the cyberspace thrown into the international battlegrounds of old, its effectiveness and effect on the both the modern state and the international bodies of the world, posing the question of how will this increased accessibility to the cyberspace will affect national security in the coming years?

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.