Cyber War is Inevitable (Unless We Build Security In)

The information systems controlling our critical infrastructure are vulnerable to cyber attack. Cyber war is therefore inevitable unless we improve our cyber defenses. The only way to do this is by building security into systems at the design stage.     

More Attacks,Less Violence

A response to John Stone, Dale Peterson, and Gary McGraw on cyber war.     

网络舆论战的心理学意义

从舆论战和网络舆论战的概念和特点出发,阐述了心理学在网络舆论战中的重要作用。综合心理学理论和舆论传播理论分析了网络舆论形成的心理机制,得出了网络舆论是通过个体心理和群体心理两个阶段而形成的结论。根据这个结论,提出了网络舆论引导的具体策略。即在个体层面上,通过操纵信息来影响人的认知;在群体层面上,通过塑造引导者主体的可信性和喜爱性,以及网络技术手段来增强舆论引导的效果。最后,指出了网络舆论战的发展前景在于充分考虑受众的心理,有针对性地进行舆论引导。     

防空体系反制网电攻击的UML与Petri网模型

网电攻击装备的出现,给传统防空体系带来全面严峻的新威胁。通过分析"舒特"系统,得到网电攻击3种典型作战样式:物理摧毁、电子攻击和网络攻击,分别从物理层次、能量层次和网络层次探索了防空体系反制网电攻击策略。为描述防空体系反制网电攻击的对策、作战结构、作战步骤等问题,分别建立了统一建模语言(UML)和Petri网模型,从理论上初步探索了防空体系反制网电攻击的对策,具有一定的理论与现实意义。     

潜艇信息系统信息安全与纵深防护策略研究

随着网络中心战的发展，信息安全问题在现代潜艇系统中的重要性日益凸显。首先分析潜艇信息安全问题的背景、总结其研究现状，然后研究了潜艇信息安全需求及属性定义，探讨了潜艇信息系统信息安全防护整体框架，在此基础上提出了一种综合静态安全防护和动态运行安全防护的潜艇信息系统信息安全纵深防护体系结构。以期为解决潜艇系统设计中的安全缺陷、建立潜艇信息安全防护体系，辅助系统维护、保障系统安全提供基础。     

The Ethics of Cyber Attack: Pursuing Legitimate Security and the Common Good in Contemporary Conflict Scenarios

ABSTRACT

Cyber attack against Critical National Infrastructure is a developing capability in state arsenals. The onset of this new instrument in national security has implications for conflict thresholds and military ethics. To serve as a legitimate tool of policy, cyber attack must operate in accordance with moral concerns. To test the viability of cyber attack, this paper provides a new perspective on cyber ethics. Cyber attack is tested against the criteria of the common good. This involves identifying the four core components of the common good from a conflict perspective: respect for the person; social wellbeing; peace and security; and solidarity. The fate of these components is assessed in relation to the six key characteristics of cyber attack from a moral standpoint: security; the role or absence of violence; discrimination; proportionality; cyberharm; and the threshold of conflict. It is concluded that the common good must be incorporated into developing state cyber strategies.     

Disrupt and restraint: The evolution of cyber conflict and the implications for collective security

In the last decade, cyber conflict has become a main feature of international politics and a growing concern for strategic stability and collective security. Unfortunately, cyber conflict suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity about its impact on collective security and a lack of consensus among international actors on how to interpret it. This article proposes to understand cyber conflict as an evolving process driven by two factors: the way in which digital space is configured and the way in which tactical, organizational, strategic, and doctrinal characteristics related to cyber have been included in the field of national and international security. Both tend to encourage offensive behavior but also demonstrate features pointing to restraint.     

军民融合视角下的美国网络安全人才战略

由于网络技术的军民两用特性,军民融合是提升网络空间安全能力的必然选择。而网络空间的竞争,归根结底是人才竞争。网络安全人才战略必须有效应对人才资源整体不足的现实困难,通过合理配置资源和创建创新机制安排,推进军民融合式的网络安全人才体系建设。美国高度重视人才在网络安全战略体系中的关键作用,通过宏观政策引导、创新交流机制、拓宽吸纳渠道等多种方式,为构建军民融合式的网络安全人才战略提供了经验借鉴。     

Nuclear deterrence and cyber warfare: coexistence or competition?

Nuclear deterrence and cyber war seem almost antithetical in their respective intellectual pedigrees. Nuclear weapons are unique in their ability to create mass destruction in a short time. Information or “cyber” weapons, at least for the most part, aim at sowing confusion or mass disruption instead of widespread physical destruction. Nevertheless, there are some intersections between cyber and nuclear matters, and these have the potential to become troublesome for the future of nuclear deterrence. For example, cyber attacks might complicate the management of a nuclear crisis. As well, information attacks on command-control and communications systems might lead to a mistaken nuclear launch based on false warnings, to erroneous interpretations of data or to panic on account of feared information blackout. It is not inconceivable that future nuclear strike planning will include a preliminary wave of cyber strikes or at least a more protracted “preparation of the battlefield” by roaming through enemy networks to plant malware or map vulnerabilities.     

浅析经济原则在网络语言中的应用

随着网络技术的发展,网络语言作为一种新的语言媒体和社会方言,越来越得到人们的重视。在不同的学术领域,专家对网络语言作出不同的诠释和研究。主要从构词、句法、非语言符号三个角度来分析经济原则在网络语言中的普遍使用,并从聊天室中收集、归纳、分析相关语料来证明经济原则的存在,及在网络空间中普遍使用的原因。对网络语言的深入研究,将更有助于人们了解语言在以高科技为背景条件下发展趋势。当网络语言冲击传统语言时,要树立正确的态度面对语言的发展。     

How Probable is Cyber War? Bringing IR Theory Back In to the Cyber Conflict Debate

Many well-established explanations for war suggest that cyber weapons have a greater chance of being used offensively than other kinds of military technologies. This response article introduces a research agenda for the study of cyber war, and offers an example – principal-agent problems in cyber operations – to demonstrate how rigorous theoretical and empirical work may proceed.     

Another manifestation of cyber conflict: attaining military objectives through cyber avenues of approach

Cyberspace is an avenue of approach through which a military force can attain objectives of value. Through these cyber avenues of approach, military forces can engage, vet, organize, and direct human agents to accomplish specific activities. Although the objectives of these activities could differ from traditional military objectives, they still have military relevance. This particular manifestation of cyber conflict is neither a new domain of war nor something outside of warfare. Rather, it can be viewed as an emerging avenue of approach in the larger context of military operations, auguring benefits in the integration of cyber activities with operations.     

Decision support model for effects estimation and proportionality assessment for targeting in cyber operations

Cyber operations are relatively a new phenomenon of the last two decades.During that period,they have increased in number,complexity,and agility,while their design and development have been processes well kept under secrecy.As a consequence,limited data(sets)regarding these incidents are available.Although various academic and practitioner public communities addressed some of the key points and dilemmas that surround cyber operations(such as attack,target identification and selection,and collateral damage),still methodologies and models are needed in order to plan,execute,and assess them in a responsibly and legally compliant way.Based on these facts,it is the aim of this article to propose a model that i))estimates and classifies the effects of cyber operations,and ii)assesses proportionality in order to support targeting decisions in cyber operations.In order to do that,a multi-layered fuzzy model was designed and implemented by analysing real and virtual realistic cyber operations combined with interviews and focus groups with technical-military experts.The proposed model was evaluated on two cyber operations use cases in a focus group with four technical-military experts.Both the design and the results of the evaluation are revealed in this article.     

Conjectures for framing cyberwarfare

Cyberspace has emerged as a potentially new (and unconventional) domain for warfare. Much debate has focused on understanding cyber conflict. The ability to critically analyse this phenomenon is important; however, the nascent nature of cyberwarfare and the complexity of the systems involved create challenges not met by conventional approaches. As a first step, this requires an analytical construct to frame discussions in a way that highlights distinct characteristics of the cyber domain. An approach proposed is one of the postulating conjectures for debate as a way to achieve this and to demonstrate its use, both at the strategic and operational levels. It is suggested that such an approach provides one component of a mature analytical framework for the analysis of cyber across a range of warfare domains.     

African nations as proxies in covert cyber operations

The growth of the African Internet, and services related to the Internet, has been rapid over the last decade. Following this market expansion, a variety of service providers have started to provide access. A fast-growing market puts pressure on the providers to deliver services first and only then seek to secure the networks. Over time, industrialised nations have become more able to detect and trace cyber attacks against their networks. These tracking features are constantly developing and the precision in determining the origin of an attack is increasing. A state-sponsored cyber attacker, such as intelligence agencies and electronic warfare units, will seek to avoid detection, especially when the attacks are politically sensitive intelligence-gathering and intrusion forays into foreign states' networks. One way for the attacker to create a path that links the attacks and the originating country is by actions through a proxy. The less technologically mature developing nations offer an opportunity for cyber aggression due to their lower level of security under the quick expansion of the Internet-based market. Developing countries could be used as proxies, without their knowledge and consent, through the unauthorised usage of these countries' information systems in an attempt to attack a third country by a state-sponsored offensive cyber operation. If the purpose of the cyber attack is to destabilise a targeted society and the attack succeeds, the used proxies are likely to face consequences in their relations with foreign countries, even if the proxy was unaware of the covert activity.     

一种可扩展的Cyber空间作战体系描述模型

研究了Cyber空间作战体系模型构建技术,提出一种面向Cyber空间作战模拟的战争系统建模新思路,并以此为基础提出了Cyber空间作战体系一体化逻辑网络模型。将Cyber空间作战涉及到的敌我双方作战实体视为一个整体系统的组分,抽象为网络模型的实体节点,实体间的各种合作、协同、对抗等不同类型交互行为统一抽象为网络模型的逻辑边。针对网络模型的节点和边分别建立了基于本体的实体描述模型和基于OO-LAMBDA语言的行为描述模型。通过一个真实战例的仿真实验验证了本文提出的方法的有效性和正确性。     

Cyber War Will Take Place!

The question of whether or not cyber war amounts to war per se is difficult to determine given strategic theory's uncertain grasp of the concepts of force, violence and lethality. These three concepts, along with their relationships with one another, are explored in order to demonstrate that cyber attacks can in fact be construed as acts of war.     

Theorizing cyber coercion: The 2014 North Korean operation against Sony

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that cyber operations have limited coercive value. It theorizes that cyber operations contribute to coercion by imposing costs and destabilizing an opponent’s leadership. As costs mount and destabilization spreads, the expected utility of capitulation surpasses that of continued defiance, leading the opponent’s leaders to comply with the coercer’s demands. The article applies this ‘cost-destabilization’ model to the 2014 North Korean cyber operation against Sony. Through cost imposition and leadership destabilization, the North Korean operation, despite its lack of physical destructiveness, caused Sony to make a series of costly decisions to avoid future harm.     

网络舆论战的理论探析

网络舆论战是一种新型作战样式。加强网络舆论战研究,既是信息化战争的时代要求,又是实现强军目标的客观需要,对于丰富具有我军特色的现代舆论战理论体系,推动我军政治工作的创新发展,具有十分重要意义。文章通过论述网络舆论战的地位作用和主要特点,对开展网络舆论战的基本战法进行了探讨。     

Precision cyber weapon systems: An important component of a responsible national security strategy?

Given the advances made in conventional weapon capabilities, precision should by now be the accepted and expected norm in cyberspace as well. In this article I argue that developing precision cyber weapon systems, to be used during a lawful conflict, can be an important part of a responsible national security strategy to reduce the amount of violence and physical destruction in conflicts. I first describe a precision cyber weapon system in a military context. I then present three compelling rationales for the development of precision cyber weapon systems based on ethical, operational, and financial considerations. To support the position, I address several arguments that have been levied against their development. Thereafter I present several recommendations for a way ahead.