Cyber War: Myth or Reality?

The Economist July issue describes cyber warfare as "the fifth domain of warfare, after land, sea, air and space". Both offensive and defensive hacking can be politically motivated, although it is normal for defensive measures to overlap with ordinary computer security. I think it's dangerous to define domains in the sense of putting limitations to one’s mind about what's possible via the Internet. 

The Internet is so completely pervasive that if we only think of it as a single domain, we're going to block out threat possibilities that could impact other domains. We're not safe if we're at sea from a network attack. We're not safe in the air from a network attack. That's why I think it's limiting and probably shouldn't be defined that way. I disapprove of using the word cyber war but I am using it because that's what everybody's using. To date, there is no agreed upon definition of what an act of cyber warfare is? It just doesn't exist. There's cyber conflict. There's cyber attacks. There's cyber espionage. There's all of that. But there is no cyber war that we can point to that has any legal substance.

However, there is a perfect storm brewing where the skills and resources required to launch a significant attack is drastically lower. Also, a food for thought cyber intelligence negates military advantage that a stronger country had against a smaller country to an extent. But depending upon the effects of a possible worm on the smart grid boxes, and the vulnerability of the generators, networks there can be a combined attack that does have strategic impact. Recently, an Indian army major’s computer was hacked in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The input was given by the American intelligence agencies after some intercepts showed a picture of a brigadier, on a training course in the US, being dispatched to Pakistan from the computer in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Countries like India need to look at the modernisation plans of the armed forces and realise it is in the government’s long-term national interest to become self-reliant in the field of critical defence equipment. I am not legitimizing the doomsday criers; mostly policy makers and big corporations who will in turn get more government funding in the name of security at the cost of the tax payer. However, I have come to realize that there is gross negligence in how security issues are being dealt with, their maintenance, and how it is evolving.

While I will not cry wolf and say it is imminent, I sadly realize that an Electronic Kargil war is now very possible.

Shailendra Chauhan