Case Studies: Information Warfare & Cyber terrorism
Jose R. Rosario Jr.
HSM 438
Instructor: Earl Ballou
October 7th, 2013
Case Studies: Information Warfare & Cyber terrorism Advances in technology have changed the way we live globally. Most people cannot be separated from their computer, laptop, cell phone, or favorite video game. Technology is in our everyday lives. We can go online almost anywhere in the world and do our shopping, banking and make movies from our cell phone or digital recorder. While it has provided many advantages the cyber world also comes with it disadvantages. A new type of criminal that did not exist 30 years ago has turned the digital world into a weapon of evil and a battle between countries. Today we fight a new kind of criminal, one that can be as far as across the globe or be right next door. It first started with individuals looking for personal gain. Now governments are fighting a new type of warfare, the Information war of a cyber-terrorism. Countries around the globe are using cyber-warfare as a way to gain valuable information and spy on one another. In 2007 a denial of service attack on the country of Estonia is one example of the damage and negative effects of cyber warfare. “The Estonian attacks began at the end of April 2007, and demonstrated quite profoundly how widely distributed and loosely coordinated denial-of service attacks could affect an entire nation. Initially, only Estonian governmental computer systems were attacked, which later spread via the Internet throughout the country to newspapers, TV stations, schools, and banks. The attacks intensified on May 3 and again on May 8–9. Although some Russian government server systems were involved, many other systems participated in the attack. The Estonian government suspected Russian complicity. A Kremlin spokesman denied any Russian governmental involvement. Analysis is apparently still ongoing. Many opportunities exist for creating major service denials, often requiring no direct access to system resources. Much more serious potential damage can result from the implantation of Trojan horses and other forms of malware (worms, viruses, and so on) some of which could have effects that were largely undetectable (such as surreptitious surveillance), others that could trigger outages and situations from which recovery would be exceedingly difficult (Neumann, P. G. 2007).” The Estonian case apparently represents the first case in which a specific country was the targeted. This is just the tip of an iceberg with respect to the potential for disruption whether widespread or specifically targeted. In 2008 cyber-attacks in South Ossetia war between Georgia and Russia was even more damaging. New studies reveal that cyber-attacks orchestrated from Russia created a strategic economic impact. Civilians and criminal organizations in several countries were recruited to aid the military effort. Analysts also suspect that digital time bombs were embedded in Georgian networks to cause future damage (Fulghum, 2009).” These attacks were believed to be in response to Georgia’s surface-to-air missile technology the shot down between eight Russian aircrafts. Since it is believed that Russian criminal organizations were assisting in the attacks, because many of the targets were financial institutions. I would not be surprising if some of the criminals organizations were would not hesitate to exploit the situation for future financial gains. Many of these attacks appeared to be strategic attacks aimed at Georgian oil and gas pipelines that are in competition with Russia. Russia was responsible for both the attacks on Estonia and Georgia. The same type of attacks that happened in Estonia was also the same type of cyber-attacks that happened in Georgia. These were denial of service attacks. In the case of the United States computers that were compromised in East Asia in July of 2006. According to Donald R. Reid,
