Cyber-war: the new war

The world is changing and so is evil. In the future wars will not be physical, fought with missiles and armies, but most of them will be invisible, the battle will be virtual, silent but nonetheless potentially devastating.

The so-called cyber-war is the new war that can destroy entire countries without killing any human being.

One of the most important challenges of the XXI century, from both the political\economical and the national security point of view, is the one regarding cyber-safety. It is no coincidence that recently the US president Barack Obama approved a cyber-security plan in order to protect the Country from future cyber-attacks and get ready a possible counter-offensive against the enemy’s networks.

The new US cyber-headquarter will be called Cybercom and is very likely to have its centre in the military base of Fort Meade, Maryland, close to Washington D.C.

Many sources from the Pentagon point out that this initiative was taken by the American government because of serious concerns regarding the possibility of spying incursion in the informatics system by China and Russia.

According to the data gathered by the National Security Department, in 2008 there have been over 60K cyber-attacks and more than 18K were addressed to the US government’s systems. The experts say that the threat is represented not only by unfriendly countries, but also by criminal organizations that want to steal industrial secrets and personal details.

What is sure, is that Cybercom’s task, which is to protect the net from unauthorised accesses, is going to be hard since the cyber-world is ruled differently compared to the real world, and it is much easier to attack than defend.

In the virtual-war scenario there are no boundaries, the enemy does not have a uniform, it is difficult to distinguish between good and evil, an attack can be run and get to you through different networks (such as financial institutes, hospitals and others) and can be launched from anywhere around the world.

This control policy, which doubtless is a good defensive attempt, is not issues-free and it might narrow some civil rights.

For example, in the US they worked out a bill (the Cyber-Security Bill) that is going to create a National Cyber-Security Council, whose aim is to constantly watch the cyber-traffic (what goes on the Internet, viruses, suspicious accesses and such things) in order to protect people from potential informatics threats. This bill will give the government the right to “declare the state of emergency” and therefore interrupt, or at least slow down, the transmission of information through Internet. This means that the government will be allowed to access personal details.

A great power comes with a great responsibility: concentrating the global control of Internet in one single body will increase its exposure, with negative effects on the privacy rights of the net’s users.

The government will have to take these issues into consideration and find a solution that is not against constitutional rights.

For further information:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/ (in English- organization whose mission is to publish info and material about security)

http://cdt.org/security/CYBERSEC4.pdf (in English- the US bill on cyber-security)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-Securing-Our-Nations-Cyber-Infrastructure/ (in English- article about cyber-security published in the White House’s official web-site)

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Translated by Saul Bassanello