Cyber privacy and warfare

Sorry I haven't been writing on here for a while... I've been very busy with moving house and a new school. Speaking of school, next week I have to do a resolution for MUN and I have decided to base it on cyber privacy and how we can stop cyber warfare. I am arguing for a more secure cyber network across the United States (as I am representing them) whilst keeping in mind the privacy rights of the people. I am also arguing that the military can only have control over cyber warfare tactics with the permission of government as currently they have most of the control.

Cyber security involves protecting information and systems from major cyber threats, such as cyber terrorism, cyber warfare, and cyber espionage. In their most disruptive form, cyber threats take aim at secret, political, military, or infrastructural assets of a nation, or its people. Cyber security is therefore a critical part of any governments’ security strategy. The U.S. federal government for example, has allotted over $13 billion annually to cyber security since late 2010.

Cyber Terrorism

Cyber terrorism is the disruptive use of information technology by terrorist groups to further their ideological or political agenda. For example, in response to the removal of a Russian WWII memorial in 2007, Estonia was hit with a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that knocked almost all ministry networks and two major bank networks offline. cyber attacks on facilities classified as critical infrastructure in the United States have increased 17-fold since 2009.

Cyber Warfare

Cyber warfare involves nation-states using information technology to penetrate another nation’s networks to cause damage or disruption. Rather than “shutting down” a target’s key networks, a cyber warfare attack may intrude networks for the purpose of compromising valuable data, degrading communications, impairing infrastructural services such as transportation and medical services, or interrupting commerce. For example, in the 2008 South Ossetia war, Russia’s initial attacks on Georgian soil were preceded by a synchronized cyber attack that crippled Georgian government websites.

Cyber Espionage

Cyber espionage is the practice of using information technology to obtain secret information without permission from its owners or holders.  Cyber espionage is most often used to gain strategic, economic, political, or military advantage. In the US, the Office of the National CounterIntellegence Executive released a report in 2011 officially acknowledging the legitimate threat of cyber espionage and its potential to damage the United States’ strategic economic advantage. In a subsequent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, former Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff elaborated on the economic impact of China’s cyber espionage of intellectual property, which he likens to the “source code” of today’s advanced economies. Through the utilization of its massive and inexpensive workforce, China has cheaply and efficiently driven a number of these ideas directly into production. As the fruits of costly investments in research and development from the hosting nation-states, the theft of these innovations is an immense strategic and economic loss to the targets.

With cyber threats in a state of rapid and continuous evolution, keeping pace in cyber security strategy and operations is a major challenge to governments. Cyber security is a serious concern to private enterprise as well, given the threat to intellectual property and privately-held critical infrastructure.

The US military today has the largest concentration of expertise and legal authority with respect to cyberspace.