What is Cyber Warfare?
During the summer of 2010, the US and Israel bilaterally conducted an attack on Iran. It was not, however, a deadly air strike or a special operations task force, but a cyber attack. The file or, worm, was named Stuxnet and is known today as the first cyber attack led in partnership by the United States (Sanger; “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,”). As the world has become more reliant on computer technology, so has the way we conduct war. The most recent method of carrying out attacks has been over cyberspace, or the Internet. Cyber warfare is the attack on a particular network of the Internet through the spread of a virus, a worm, or even misinformation. This network may be a central network of a hospital or a nuclear plant, which is what makes it so dangerous. While the attack may not directly harm anybody physically, the effects can be devastating.
What are the methods of Cyber Warfare? Who is responsible?
Cyber warfare has been used in a variety of ways: 1. Attacking a country’s networks 2. Spreading false information 3. Gaining access to military secrets 4. Cyber espionage.
Examples:
* The Stuxnet worm sent to Iranian nuclear facilities. * On Tuesday, April 23, a group declaring themselves the “Syrian Electronic Army” hacked into the Twitter account of the Associated Press and released a Tweet declaring an attack on the White House in which President Barack Obama was injured (Fisher; Syrian hackers claim AP hack that tipped stock market by $136 billion. Is it terrorism?). This of course was false and easily taken down, but the stock market plummeted and $136 billion in equity market value was lost. This simple case of false information caused billions of dollars in damage. * Over the past years, there has been an increasing number of attacks perpetrated by China, in which they have stolen information, military