Going Global: Cyber Warfare

Data is already the next battlefield

World leaders aren’t taking internet security as seriously as they should. You’d think they would after an allegedly American-Israeli cyber weapon—Stuxnet—proved that they could sabotage a power plant in Iran remotely, and after the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee email servers.

While many like to joke that Al Gore “invented the internet,” the internet was actually an enterprise of university academics and American military organizations. In this case, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), played a key role, and was extremely interested in the potential defense capabilities of the internet. Of course, up to the minute intelligence is critical in all situations.

This is why it’s sometimes perplexing to hear about the Americans and American companies getting hacked, because you’d figure out of everyone, they’d be the most aware of it. It hurts when companies get hacked for more reasons than just user data—there’s also the potential for ideas and research to get stolen. While it might be popular to decry big corporations, it’s actually in the state’s best interest to protect the intellectual property of their citizens.

Although a war between China and the United States is almost certainly unlikely to ever happen in our lifetimes, it would still be advisable for them to keep tabs on each other. The Chinese government admitted in 2015, after much denial, that they indeed have a cyberwarfare unit, PLA Unit 61398.

And this isn’t only an American problem, the Canadian government also gets hacked. In 2011, Defense Research and Development Canada were compromised by attacks originating from China.

The United States, however, is typically on the receiving end of far more egregious attacks from foreign governments. Not only in their governmental and defense sectors, but also private businesses. It would make sense for a foreign government to hack Blackberry or Apple in an attempt to gain security keys for the purposes of tapping phones. Lockheed Martin, known for designing the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, have been hacked numerous times in an attempt to gain access to their research.

Furthermore, it’s in the interest of governments to use their hacking units to take down terrorist web pages and servers. The modern terrorist uses the internet to find potential new recruits, and sometimes not even covertly. Some militias in the Kashmir region of India have been using Facebook and other forms of social media to mobilize anti-government protesters and insurgents.

With all of this in mind, it would make a lot of sense as to why American security officials want to try banning various forms of encryption. Of course, this way of thinking makes little sense, because as the old gun-rights argument goes, actual hackers don’t care about what the law says. Such laws would actually hurt tech companies like Apple and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman who need heavy encryption to protect their research. Private citizens need encryption to keep their credit card from getting stolen by a terrorist, or more likely, a petty criminal.

This is just the beginning of cyberwarfare. Like the tank on land in 1918, the bomber in the air in 1940, the Stuxnet-infected USB drive will be one of the tools in the next century of warfare. However, unlike the craters left after bombings, an entire defense network could be hacked without the government even knowing it.