A Documentary By Admiral Vern Essay

The most recents detections of how cyber warfare is inevitably coming was the accusations of Russia hacking the the Democratic National Committee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email’s releasing damaging evidence against them which ultimately lead to Donald Trump being named the President of The United States (Diamond, 2016). The effects of cyber warfare have leaked over in to televise series, forming shows such as CSI cyber, and the gaming world, Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare. Neglect regarding cyber security can: undermine the reputation of both the government and elected officials; force unacceptable expenditures associated with the cost of cleaning up after security breaches; cripple governments' abilities to respond to a wide variety of homeland security emergency situations or recover from natural or man-made threats; and disable elected officials' ability to govern (Lohrmann, 2010). Classified information such as overseas operators and attacks, missile locations, response plans and weaknesses, and much more cripples America’s ability to defend itself from enemies both foreign and domestic. To combat cyber terrorism is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. In an article titled “Why Cybersecurity Information Sharing Is A Positive Step for Online Security” it is discussed that under CISA, the Department of Homeland security will have more responsibility for domestic cybersecurity. CISA’s fundamental purpose is to better enable cybersecurity information to be shared between the private and public sectors (2016). The sharing of threat information between public and private sectors can give the the United States a head start by allowing them to share information rapidly and more often to combat enemy threats while still providing safety for privacy and civil

When considering the technological advances over the past 50 years, the Internet has undoubtedly had the greatest impact on everyday life of developed economies and its citizens. The world has become smaller, societies interconnected, and the pace of global integration dramatically increased since the introduction of the Internet. With the world connected, cyber actors represent a very real and often underestimated threat to the United States’ ability to defend national security, protect industrial innovation, and secure privacy information. As a result of globalization, the foreign cyber actors represent the most imminent threat to national security, corporate innovation, and citizen privacy rights.

Since the onset of the first packet switching event that many believe to be beginning of the internet, no other technology besides the printing press has ever transformed the ability to deliver information. Although the internet is used by a large percentage of the civilized world, few Americans realize how vital cyberspace is to our national infrastructure. Today, we are faced with even more threats although it has been a recognized problem since 2009, when President Barrack Obama said “The cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. It’s also clear that we’re not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country (Obama, 2009).” Every industry that operates in the United States is dependent on the internet for some aspect of their business. Commerce, transportation, financial institutions, military, as well as industrial control systems are all interconnected. This interconnectedness has created vulnerabilities within their infrastructure that have increasingly become targets of terrorists, script kiddies, foreign governments and hackers of all types.

The book “Conquest in Cyberspace” went in depth on the United States’, Russia’s, and China’s views on information warfare and cyber warfare. It also discussed the areas where their policies, guidance, and operations differ and are the same. One of the most interesting things which I noticed in the completion of this assignment is how the United States has the most well defined and in depth policies and governances regulating their information warfare and cyber warfare operations and how both China and Russia has taking the policies and governances created by the United States and mimicked them in the creation of their own policies and governances for information

Each viewpoint, the hawk, the dove, and the internationalist base their consequent arguments on the perceived current political and moral position of the United States regarding international cybersecurity. Similar to relations between the USSR and the US, the rhetoric between the United States and China draws from the tensions surrounding superpower military supremacy and moral imperatives. Between the hawkish, dovish, and internationalist perspectives, the themes of American military and moral power persist.

General Clapper, the United States Director of National Intelligence, recently briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the worldwide threat assessment. His brief addressed the implications of technology on national security, and characteristics of the nation’s leading threat actors that include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state actors. The entirety of the briefing demonstrates that the United States will face numerous increasingly complex national security challenges into the foreseeable future.

Today however, a new type of warfare has emerged and occurs when outside entities conduct an attack on a power grid, network, or both with the intent of causing damage. This type of warfare is called cyber warfare. In the United States computers control everything. It is no secret that hostile countries and terrorist organizations are cognizant and they know our economy, security, and infrastructure can be crippled by a successful cyber-attack. Examples of potential targets for cyber terrorists include military bases, water systems, banking facilities, air traffic control centers and power plants. Even the Commander in Chief, President Obama has stated the threat of a cyber war is real and we must prepare for it and increase our security measures. First, this paper will discuss cyberterrorism and cyber-attacks as they pose a direct threat to national security and the economy. Then, we will review cyber-attacks against the U.S. from China, Iran, and Russia along with the impact and possible ramifications from those attacks. Finally, this paper discusses U.S. strategies to minimize the impact of cyber-attacks.

Many programs were put into place due to the increasingly amount of cyberattacks the United States faced from terrorist organizations such as ISIS and the Taliban, but the threat and the act of cyber-attacks also come from rival countries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea. Isis has been known to hacking into Facebook accounts, getting intelligence on military service members and then creating kill lists that were sent on to Islamic State supporters. “North Korea is another state actor of some concern, he says, having gained international profile after the hack on Sony and consequent leak of embarrassing emails. North Korea's abilities have improved since that attack, and the country is believed to be behind several attacks, including some against South Korean officials” (Lillington,2016). The most effective and efficient way to stop these acts of cyber-attacks would be to strengthen cyber security and limit the ability of terrorist organizations to gain financial assets and also recruit member via the

Pfleeger, S. Pfleeger, and Margulies (2015) outline possible examples of cyber warfare between Canada and China (p. 844). According to Pfleeger, S. Pfleeger, and Margulies (2015), “the Canadian government revealed that several of its national departments had been victims of a cyber attack…” (p. 844). Eventually, the attack was unofficially traced to a computer in China (p. 844). Cyber warfare can be used negatively and positively. It is evident that China was seeking to gain protected information form Canada. Although a purpose of cyber warfare, it is not a conventional way of obtaining information. Additionally, cyber warfare can be used to collect intelligence on an enemy. Anyone seeking to gather intelligence on another individual or group can launch a cyber attack that gains access to protected files. This could be used to help future militant operations or expose critical information. Lastly, cyber warfare can be used to test systems internally. Acting with no malicious intent, “insiders” can utilizing cyber warfare tactics to attack their own cyber security barriers in order to test the strength of their systems. Seeking to expose the vulnerabilities in a system that contains important assets without actually harming the assets provides the system a diagnosis of what needs to be strengths and fixed. Identifying the problem or threats before an actual attack can ultimately save the protected

The National Security Agency (NSA) and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) both play crucial roles when it comes to combating and investigating cyber crimes. The NSA’s primary responsibility is to create and maintain computer-coding systems that protect sensitive information regarding U.S. information systems (Taylor, Fritsch, and Liederbach, 2015). Along with their crucial role of protecting the United States’ sensitive computer information, the NSA also provides specialized information system training to both private and government entities (Taylor et al., 2015). The ICE Agency’s responsibilities go far beyond physically protecting U.S. Borders. The ICE Agency

Cyber security is a major concern for every department, business, and citizen of the United States because technology impacts every aspect of our daily lives. The more we use technology the more complacent, we get with the information that is stored within our cyber networks. The more complacent, we get, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-attacks because we fail to update the mechanisms that safeguard our information. Breaches to security networks are detrimental to personal, economic, and national security information. Many countries, like Russia, China, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, now have the abilities and technology to launch cyber-attacks on the United States. In the last five years there have been several attacks on cyber systems to gain access to information maintained by major businesses and the United States Government. Cyber-attacks cause serious harm to the United States’ economy, community, and the safety, so we need to build stronger cyber security mechanisms. Based on my theoretical analysis, I recommend the following:

Before explaining how to establish international cyber security and peace, it is essential to understand why cyberspace presents such a threat to national security. Adam Segal asserts that the most prominent issue of cyberspace is the anarchy in which it exists (Cite). According to Segal, the past 60 years of international relations, known as the “nuclear age”, have been governed by a very clear set of rules, predominantly arms control and international institutions that do not apply to cyberspace. The result of an unregulated cyberspace is the emergence of cybercrime that cost over a trillion dollars a year and the stealing of private information by individuals and governments (Cybersecurity: A Global Issue). In 2015 the Washington Office of Personnel Management was the victim of a cyber attack traced back to the Chinese government that exposed the records, addresses, and personal details of over 14 million US government employees (Bremmer). Later in 2015, even following an agreement between the US and China to attempt to limit cyber security breaches between their nations US technological group Crowdstrike reported that several US pharmaceuticals were targeted by multiple Chinese industries (Kharpal). ISIS also has breached US security by tapping government twitter and Facebook feeds to announce an ISIS Caliphate determined to target American soldiers and domestic security (Lohrmann). ISIS has been able to find private information on the lives of countless US soldiers

The branches of the military, for a couple generations, have always been the Army, Navy, Air force, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard; however, in an ever evolving digital world, the notion that outer space would be the next military front is being rapidly replaced by the idea that cyber space will be the next arms race. The United States has been defending attacks on their infrastructure day after day, night after night, when one hacker on one side of the world sleeps, another takes their place to attempt to compromise the US government. The motives may range from a political ‘hacktivist’ trying to prove a point, to an economic spy, trying to gain a competitive edge on its more upstart rivals, to an attempt to control the United States

While wars continue to rage in the middle east and tensions build over increasingly hostile Russian military activity, a silent and often forgotten battle is being waged on a battlefield unable to be seen. This battlefield is located in cyberspace and may determine and shape the future of all prospective battles and wars to come. In this paper, we will look at two separate countries, Belgium, and Russia, and examine what their cyber strategies are pertaining to warfare and defense or security, and current capabilities of these countries regarding cyber-attacks or warfare. We will also be looking at the potential risks these countries present to the United States and the best was the United States can defend against these potential or emerging threats.

The damage of a full-fledged cyber attack would be devastating, the destruction would be unparalleled to any other tragedy that has occurred America. Since technology is responsible for providing America with vital entities and resources, an unadulterated cyber attack would nearly fail the American economy; this is what is known as critical systems failure. Weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks present imminent threats of critical systems failure. Although currently Americas’ critical infrastructures are coordinated by controlled systems, majority of these systems are indeed connected to the American cyberspace. This exposes one of America’s most vulnerable spot amidst cyber security. Another major vulnerable spot within the nations IT security would be the geographical physical location for each of Americas primary infrastructures, as well as their productivity. Due to the proximal locations, the major infrastructures could very well be infiltrated by one efficient CNA.