Cyber-Warfare in the 21st Century

What have we learned about cyber-warefare? It is a very difficult task to prove who performed the attack. With cyber-warfare there are numerous ways to hide the attackers identity. This is mostly done by using botnet's of "zombie" computers distributed around the World. The owners of these computers have no idea that they are being used to attack web sites that they might never even visit. This is the most common and known way of cyber-warfare. Using these botnets the attackers can cause Distributed Denial of Service Attacks which can interrupt access to web sites and other services that rely on an internet connection. Attackers can also spoof IP addresses which hide the origin of the attack.

It is reported that China is at the forefront of cyber-warfare but McAffee reports that over 120 countries are studying different ways and techniques of cyber-warfare. This can be called virtual "arms race" in which the forerunners are China, Russia and the United States.
It is very important to be ready for cyber-warfare. Although cyber-warfare leaves no trace of physical damages (i.e. destroyed buildings, homes, etc), it can impact every aspect of our livelihood. This can be from such complicated systems as Air Travel to more simple things like Cable TV. It all depends on the purpose that the attackers have and most of the time it is to cause panic and chaos on their victims.

According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal the US infrastructure is still vulnerable to cyber-warfare. As recently as in 2007 the US was a victim of cyber attacks that compromised computers located at the US Department of State and including the Secretary of Defense Robert Gate's email. The report states and I quote "A known vulnerability is America's power grid, which could be disrupted for months by a sophisticated cyber attack, experts say. In telecommunications, banking and transportation, it's harder to predict how great the damage would be."

One of the most recent events involving cyber-warfare was the Georgian-Russian conflict. Georgia has accused Russia of trying to disrupt communications of official web sites such as the Georgian Ministry of Defense web site among others. These attacks have been called a sort of "cybersiege" on the Georgian government. It is also beleived that the hackers used cloned web sites to replace the real Georgian web sites in order to obtain more information from people who accessed them regularly (i.e. government officials).

A recent Pentagon report states that China's PLA (People's Liberation Army) has stated that they are preparing to have "electronic dominance" over each of their global rivals by 2050. Their ambitions extend to crippling their enemy's financial, military and communications capabilities. The report also state that China has increased their Cyber attacks. It is also reported that China is winning the virtual "arms race". A US Congress panel reports "China is aggressively developing its power to wage cyber warfare and is now in a position to delay or disrupt the deployment of America's military forces around the world, potentially giving it the upper hand in any conflict".