Unconventional Threats and Ca Terrorism

Cyberspace as a Warfighting Domain Unconventional Threats and Ca Terrorism

Cyber warfare is happening now. Almost daily there are reports in the press that demonstrate the prevalence of malicious cyber activity and the growing threat it poses, not just to the government, but to the private citizen as well. In the past two years, Estonia and Georgia faced cyber attacks on their national systems. At various times, the Department of Defense has had to shut down networks because of intrusions, and had to ban the use of removable, flash-type drives because of the threat of malware transmission. Congress itself has been the target of malicious cyber activity with several committees and member offices affected. We are constantly bombarded by email spam and warnings of false websites and phishing scams seeking to compromise our personal information. The cyber threat has many faces, from the nation state using cyber space as a new intelligence front to criminal organizations seeking to steal our money and identities to the computer hobbyist who hacks for no other reason than the challenge of it; and the threat has many tools-from botnets and counterfeit chips to insider activity-to compromise our systems. In response, we need to be vigilant and persistent in our efforts to protect the information and communication on our systems.