Three Types of Cyber War in Small Wars Journal by David Hollis

Cyber crimes from criminal organizations has risen over the past few years many of these have been located overseas and most of them have been based in Eastern Europe that hire and direct hackers on what they want done. The statement has been made that the battle lines between cyber attacks by organized crime reaches far wider than just an institution's firewalls. One such organized cybercrime unit is the Russian Business Network they are one of the more well known criminal organizations delving into the global networks of the financial institutions.

Clarke and Knake use a mixed method research approach in Cyber War to support their hypothesis that offensive prowess is meaningless without solid defense in cyberspace, and that the United States need immediately fix our defensive cyber shortfalls, or face apocalyptic doom. Specifically, the authors define ‘cyber war’ as “actions by a nation state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption.” This infers that they are really talking about ‘warfare’ and

In order to properly answer the question posed we must first define what cyber-war and cyber-terrorism are. The Oxford Dictionaries defines cyber-war as “The use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of communication systems by another state or organization:” Although there is no dictionary definition of cyber-terrorism, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has defined it as “the use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (e.g., energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population.” The author defines cyber terror as “the intimidation of civilian enterprise through the use of high technology to bring about political, religious, or ideological aims, actions that result in disabling or deleting critical infrastructure data or information.”

The recent Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computers’ servers has highlighted Russia’s nefarious information war against the US. In recent years Russia developed a highly capable method of waging information warfare and they are now aggressively targeting the US. The Russian strategy has focused on digitally infiltrating and influencing through social media the conservative movement in the United States in order to make it hostile to its own government.

Drawing from authors like Jason Andress who is an academic teacher and a professional security expert, the book Cyber Warfare states that “The U.S. military does not have a definition for cyber warfare today” (53). While this work was published in 2014, it is still a fair assessment into today. According to the CCDCOE, again on their webpage “Cyber Definitions,” cyber warfare as agreed between The United States and Russia is defined as “cyber attacks that are authorized by state actors against cyber infrastructure in conjunction with government campaign.” The two nations also define cyber attacks in the same agreement to mean “an offensive use of a cyber weapon intended to hard designated target.” Finally, the two nations define cyber

The use of cyber attacks is a preferred method for cyber terrorists as the advantages far outweigh the traditional methods that have been committed by recent organizations. If a cyber attack was conducted, it would be cheaper to execute than traditional methods, cyber attacks are more difficult to trace, the possibility of hiding the identity and location of the attacker is appealing. There is also the reward of knowing there is no physical barriers or checkpoints to cross, a cyber attack can be done remotely from any location in the world, cyber attacks can cripple multiple targets, thus greatly affecting a larger number of people (Elmusharaf,

There is a serious threat to America's current and continued security. This threat comes from reliance on the Internet. With the openness of the Internet and the potential for anonymity, the Internet becomes an easy avenue for enemies to stage a covert attack. “Some governments, like China, have made cyber-warfare a critical part of their military doctrine, in part to help counter the advantage the U.S. has in conventional and nuclear war fighting capability. The United States is highly vulnerable to a timed, well-organized attack from another state or no state

John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt published a paper in 1993 declaring that “Cyberwar is coming!” (Rid, 2016, p1) Rid says, “Since then, it seems to have arrived—at least by the account of the U.S. military establishment, which is busy competing over who should get what share of the fight.” (Rid, 2016, p.1) Fueling his argument Rid defines an act of war by stating “it has to be potentially violent, it has to be purposeful, and it has to be political.” (Rid, 2016, p.1) Furthermore, he says “There is no known cyberattack that has caused the loss of human life. No cyber offense has ever injured a person or damaged a building. And if an act is not at least potentially violent, it 's not an act of war. Separating war from physical violence makes it a metaphorical notion; it would mean that there is no way to distinguish between World War II, say, and the "wars" on obesity and cancer” (Rid, 2016, p.1) Rid reinforces his argument by presenting evidence such as analogies of past cyber-attacks and acts of war. He recounts cyberattacks on Estonia in April

Authors Gartze and Rid attempt to use the Clausewitz key words of force, violence, and lethality in their argument against a cyber war (Cyber War Will Take Place, Stone). This definition is archaic and does not take in to account the new world environment and power of some state and non-state actors in the cyber realm.

In his article, Cyber War Will Take Place, John Stone states that cyber-attacks can produce the violence required to damage strategic targets and destroy enemy

For thousands of years warfare remained relatively unchanged. While the tactics and weapons have changed as new methods of combat evolved, men and women or their weapons still had to meet at the same time and place in order to attack, defend, surrender or conquer. However, the advent of the of the internet has created a new realm of combat in which armies can remotely conduct surveillance, reconnaissance, espionage, and attacks from an ambiguous and space-less digital environment. Both state and non-state actors have already embraced this new realm and utilized both legal and illegal means to further facilitate their interests. What complicates cyber security further is as states attempt to protect themselves from cyber-warfare, private

perform the cyber-attacks. While the group of non-state cyber actors may not agree with the

Cyberterrorism is generally understood to refer to highly damaging computer-based attacks or threats of attack by non-state actors against

A cyber attack was made on Estonia in 2007 that happened on 26 April 2007 at sharp 10'o clock, the government of Estonia was made the target of cyber attack by some secret foe. The hackers started their attack by accessing the website of Reform Party, and then slowly and steadily hacked all the government websites, official site of Estonian Parliament and websites of remaining political parties (Stacy Prowell, 2010). The

Cyber warfare attacks can disable official websites and networks, disrupt or disable essential services, steal or alter classified data, and cripple financial systems -- among many other possibilities (definition of cyberwarfare) “.The Tech Target definition includes no reference of nation states. That is because cyber warfare has such a low barrier to entry, a teenager can effectively shut down or damage thousands or millions of dollars of digital infrastructure, something that a real world counterpart would take years to plan, would take weeks, and the only tools needed are a mouse, keyboard, and some type of motivation. Cyber warfare is constantly evolving, constantly becoming more of a threat and is, in fact, being employed right now as this sentence is being read.