Cyber warfare is coming

• Source: Global Times
• [18:22 November 19 2009]
• Comments

By Ren Yingying

The cyber arms race has moved from fiction to reality, according to an annual Virtual Criminology Report released Tuesday by McAfee, the world's largest security technology company in Santa Clara, California.

"McAfee began to warn of the global cyber arms race more than two years ago, but now we're seeing increasing evidence that it's become real," said Dave DeWalt, McAfee president and CEO.

Politically motivated cyber attacks have increased and China, the US, Russia, France, Israel and are engaged in cyberwar-like preparations and attacks, and developing advanced offensive cyber arsenal, said the report, compiled by Paul B. Kurtz, a former senior official on cyber security in the White House's National Security and Homeland Security Councils.

The report is based on interviews with 20 experts on national defense, international relations, economy, computer security, and cyber attacks in past years. Among the cases cited in the report were the cyber assaults against Georgia's government and media websites waged by some Russian nationalists during the South Ossetia war in August 2008 and the attack against US official sites like the White House, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and New York Stock Exchange on July 4 this year.

Cyber warfare at hand?

A growing number of cyber attack were reported in recent years, but the report said the increasingly "politically motivated cyber attack has raised alarm and caution."

"Nation-states are actively developing cyber warfare capabilities and involved in the cyber arms race, targeting government networks and critical infrastructures," it said.

"While we have not yet seen a 'hot' cyber war between major powers, the efforts of nation-states to build increasingly sophisticated cyber attack capabilities – and in some cases demonstrate a willingness to use them – suggests that a 'Cyber Cold War' may have already begun," McAfee said.

"Cyber attacks are reported everyday worldwide. China is of no exception. But there is a line between cyber attack and cyber warfare," said Li Fei, an information security expert at the National Defense University of China.

A large number of online attacks worldwide could be classed as "reconnaissance" at most, according to Greg Day, primary analyst for security at McAfee Europe.