Last year Stuxnet attacked rare hardware controllers used by Iran's nuclear program. This year Fukushima faces a nuclear crisis. The crisis was caused by an earthquake, but it's not hard to imagine what a well funded attacker could do. No amount of static defense will make networks secure. The best defense is a good offense, especially in cyber warfare. State funded attackers, criminals, and terrorists need to be hit before they hit our networks. Counter-attacks should be adapted to the target; criminal organizations or terrorists cells get less impunity than states like China or Russia. At least publicly. Anyone with a computer can play war now. But having an army of hackers isn't enough to keep you safe either—the countries of the world need to work together. We need international law to step up to the plate. If it doesn't, you can be sure things will get messy.
Inside Cyber Warfare is a good book.
4 comments:
I agree that the international society needs to get involved. There will come a time when "we can't prosecute them because they aren't in jurisdiction" just won't cut it anymore.
How do you fight back against terrorist hackers? Unlike countries, they don't have any permanent infrastructure to destroy. Hit them with a virus and all they have to do is reformat a few hard drives and then they're back in business.
@okashiicoder Exactly why international law needs to step up. However, there are ways to attack computers that can do much more damage than just reformatting hard drives--like Permanent Denial of Service attacks (PDoS), which target hardware. You can also destroy information. If the terrorists have spent months working on a cyber attack, and you destroy it all, they have to start over. You can steal their code and look at it, then implement the fixes necessary to thwart the attack. In short, there is a lot of aggression you can use which will be effective.
This sounds a lot like prohibition; attack the suppliers so that they stop what they're doing. This only creates more powerful hackers. You can send PDoS attacks, but eventually they will learn to avoid these. Since the number of capable hackers will be fewer, the price for their services will be much higher.
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