Wikipedia defines Cyber Warfare as “politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage.” in its simplest form it can be the attempt to degrade service in another nation’s digital assets utilizing what is known as a Denial of Service or DoS attack. Other more malicious attacks include a category known as malware, the most well known example of which is Stuxnet, a virus discovered in 2010 which mainly affected the nuclear centrifuges of Iran. More recently, Symantec reported a piece of malware named Regin which collects information on companies, government agencies, etc. and has gone undetected for the past five years.
According to DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), “Cyberspace is now recognized as a critical domain of operations by the U.S. military and its protection is a national security issue.” (Plan X) The United States is treating Cyber Warfare just like any other military operation and other nations are undoubtedly doing the same. In fact, reading through the requirements of DARPA’s Plan X feels more like the requirements document for an advanced weapons system than a computer system. But of course in reality it is both.
Among other things, Plan X has been prototyping a tool which allows an operator (think hacker) to visualize a network in a virtual reality environment. The idea is to make the hacking experience more immersive. So instead of hacking by sitting at a keyboard, the hacker attacks enemy resources as if they were in a video game. This is the future of cyber warfare. Once again, science fiction books and Hollywood have predicted the future sooner than everyone else. Films such as Swordfish have depicted hackers using visualization techniques to crack the world’s best crypto. Before that, Tron tells the story of a hacker who gets immersed in a video game. In 1982!
The U.S. Cyber Command is maturing and although it is less than five years old, it is quickly becoming the hub of new cyber technologies for the U.S. government. Plan X gives us a tiny yet illuminating glimpse into the future.
The tensions that divide the United States and China apply just as much to cyberspace as to relations in the physical world. Can the two countries achieve meaningful outcomes through formal negotiations over cyber norms and rules?