Pentagon Goes On The Offensive Against Cyberattacks
From: National Public Radio
by Tom Gjelten
With the Pentagon now officially recognizing cyberspace as a domain of warfare, U.S. military commanders are emphasizing their readiness to defend the nation against cyber threats from abroad. What they do not say is that they are equally prepared to launch their own cyber attacks against U.S. adversaries.
The importance of plans for offensive cyber war operations is obscured by the reluctance of the government to acknowledge them. When the Pentagon in announced its “Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace” in July 2011, for example, it appeared the military was focused only on protecting its own computer networks, not on attacking anyone else’s.
“The thrust of the strategy is defensive,” declared William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense at the time. Neither he nor other Pentagon officials had one word to say about possible offensive cyber attacks. The Pentagon would not favor the use of cyberspace “for hostile purposes,” according to the strategy. “Establishing robust cyber defenses no more militarizes cyberspace,” Lynn said, “than having a navy militarizes the ocean.”
Those assurances are deceptive. Behind the scenes, US commanders are committing vast resources and large numbers of military personnel to planning offensive cyber attacks and, in at least some cases, actually carrying them out. But the secrecy surrounding offensive cyber war planning means there has been almost no public discussion or debate over the legal, ethical, and practical issues raised by waging war in cyberspace.
Offensive cyber attacks carried out by the United States could set precedents other countries would follow. The rules of engagement for cyber war are not yet clearly defined. And the lack of regulation concerning the development of cyber weapons could lead to a proliferation of lethal attack tools, and even to the possibility that such weapons could fall into the hands of unfriendly states, criminal organizations, and even terrorist groups.
In some cases, offensive cyber attacks are being conducted within the parameters of conventional military operations. In Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines depend heavily on video and data links when they go into combat. As part of the process of “prepping the battlefield,” commanders may want to launch pre-emptive attacks on the adversary’s cyber capabilities in order to make sure their data networks do not get interrupted.
| Print article |