Handicapping the Global Cybersecurity War

Source: Kenneth Corbin, Internet.com

“WASHINGTON — Looking ahead to the next major global conflict, the more appropriate question might be to ask whether the United States will be able to defend against a major cyberattack, rather than if one will occur.

Students of information warfare point out that physical attacks rarely, if ever, transpire any longer without a cyber component, and that assaults on digital systems such as the electrical grid or telecommunications networks are quickly becoming the face of modern combat.

“This revolution is so profound that the whole history of warfare is now going to look very different,” said Scott Borg, director of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit group that works closely with the government to evaluate the effects of potential cyberattacks.

“The big thing here is to get military to understand that conflict is not between men at arms anymore,” Borg said in a presentation on cyber warfare here at the USENIX security conference.”Nobody should be talking about a weapons system anymore without talking about its cybervulnerabilities.”"