IAC-Council-Cyber

ASIPSS                   
Center For
NonProliferation

Cyber Warfare

Given the obscure nature of cyber activities it is difficult to ascertain the true scope of cybercrime and cybersecurity in an ever globalized world. What is becoming clear is the vulnerabilities groups, organizations, and key state infrastructures face from hacker groups. Governments are realizing that this new digital arena will become an increasingly likely place where more and more crimes of sabotage will take place from other states. Hackers have a wide variety of targets and for a wide array of different purposes. Groups who hack individuals for the purposes of identity theft, obtaining banking and financial information or recent more notorious crimes such as the Equifax breach where the information of millions of people were breached. The FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating whether hacker groups funded by the Russian government were the ones responsible for hacking the Democratic National Convention and releasing thousands of emails in order to diminish the chances that Hillary Clinton would win the election in order to help her opponent.

This new battleground is still considered a gray area by the US government and they have not tackled in a serious legislative way. This is partly because the US government is not yet sure on how far they want to employ these strategies themselves and want to test its limits, its strength and weaknesses, and its legality. The real threat from cyber in the coming years will stem from the dangers of hackers attacking key infrastructure such as power and electrical systems. These issues will require serious effort and a high allocation of resources to tackle in this ever connected world.