- 04/08/2017
- Category: Commentaries
For thousands of years, wars have broken out all over the globe. Today, a few of these brutal conflicts are still happening, and pretty much all of them come out with calamities; they almost always end up with destruction. This is why we are familiar with how they usually happen – with all the guns, tanks, and aircraft carriers. However, the human world is continuously shifting towards a more digitalized form, thus so are the wars. This, of course, means that information technology is now capable enough even to be used as a weapon for war. The battle field is not always full of soldiers in tanks now – some are filled with just electronic numbers and letters. Welcome to the era of cyber-attacks.
A cyber-attack is “any type of offensive manoeuvre employed by nation-states, individuals, groups, or organizations that targets computer information systems, infrastructures, computer networks, and/or personal computer devices by various means of malicious acts usually originating from an anonymous source,”[1] quoting from Tom C. W. Lin’s Financial Weapons of War. You might have known about the fact that large institutions now rely on digital resources to operate, be it a server to store most of their data, or even as a platform upon which their whole institution is based. These institutions range from small firms all the way to countries and international organizations. By hacking any of these digital systems (which you can do if you know how to), one can have access to things such as secret files and other confidential materials. Do it on a larger scale, and they create actual damage. If they use this act to ‘terrorize’ an institution, we call it a cyber-attack. Although cyber-attacks are not all about wars, it can be said that it is certainly an important issue to cover.
Some examples are quite recent when this commentary was written. Around June of 2017, Russia was accused by several countries as being the culprit behind numerous cyber-attacks. The Guardian reported that Russia was suspected by the British government for attacking their Parliament. They reported the MPs saying that “the immediate suspicion had fallen upon foreign governments such as Russia and North Korea, both of which have been accused of being behind hacking attempts in the UK before.”[2] The month before, Russia was linked to the hacking of France’s computer systems when the presidential campaign took place, taking information from Emmanuel Macron’s campaign and then exposing it to the public.[3]
Ukraine also stepped in, accusing Russia of being behind an attack, with their security service saying “the available data, including those obtained in cooperation with international antivirus companies, give us reason to believe that the same hacking groups are involved in the attacks, which in December 2016 attacked the financial system, transport and energy facilities of Ukraine using TeleBots and BlackEnergy,” as reported by Independent.[4] Mallory Locklear of Engadget also mentioned about this phenomenon, saying that Boryspil airport, the banking system, a state power distributor, and even the Ukrainian government have been hit.[5]
What this suggests is that because cyber-attacks are in essence online-based, the possibilities are endless for a country to launch attacks to others in a way never before seen. Looking at how advanced physical security systems are nowadays in places like airports and power stations, it seems almost impossible for a traditional military surge to work easily. But since advanced information technologies are a lot more efficient and easier to modify – or hack, attacks to places never expected before can be done, and on a scale unimaginable in the olden days. Attacking in ‘cyber mode,’ as I’d like to call it, makes it a lot easier and more discreet for a country to act according to their interests, with profound damage as a result. It is indeed efficient, and when a country has the capability to do it, it only makes sense for them actually to practice it.
In the end, we cannot help but accept the fact that using digital systems is now a new way for countries to fight each other, in the same way, that you use your smartphone to join political debates over at Twitter. It’s a lot more efficient, costs less money, and the effects can be very significant. Countries need to follow their interests, and because digital ways are more efficient, they cannot really say ‘no’ to that. And since these interests sometimes mean that they have to attack others, what we know now as a cyber-attack in this field just becomes more and more relevant in the modern age. Expect more cyber-attacks among countries in the future to take place, and bear in mind that any of them can happen right before your eyes.
Picture: Pixabay
[1] Lin, T.C., 2015. Financial Weapons of War. Minn. L. Rev., 100, p.1377.
[2] MacAskill, E. and Syal, R. (2017). Cyber-attack on UK parliament: Russia is suspected culprit. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/25/cyber-attack-on-uk-parliament-russia-is-suspected-culprit [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].
[3] MacAskill, E. and Syal, R. (2017). Cyber-attack on UK parliament: Russia is suspected culprit. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/25/cyber-attack-on-uk-parliament-russia-is-suspected-culprit [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].
[4] Silva, C. (2017). Russia was behind global cyber attack, Ukraine says. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-cyber-attack-ukraine-petya-telebots-blackenergy-sbu-cadbury-a7819501.html [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].
[5] Locklear, M. (2017). Large-scale cyberattack is spreading through Russia and Ukraine (updated). [online] Engadget. Available at: https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/27/large-scale-cyberattack-spreading-russia-ukraine/ [Accessed 27 Jul. 2017].
