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Abstract
For almost two decades, experts and defense establishments the world over have been predicting that cyber war is coming. But is it? This article argues in three steps that cyber war has never happened in the past, that cyber war does not take place in the present, and that it is unlikely that cyber war will occur in the future. It first outlines what would constitute cyber war: a potentially lethal, instrumental, and political act of force conducted through malicious code. The second part shows what cyber war is not, case-by-case. Not one single cyber offense on record constitutes an act of war on its own. The final part offers a more nuanced terminology to come to terms with cyber attacks. All politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of three activities that are as old as warfare itself: sabotage, espionage, and subversion.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank David Betz, Peter McBurney, Tim Stevens and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and the Institute for Advanced Study at Konstanz University for their support.
Notes
1Jean Giraudoux, Tiger at the Gates (La Guerre De Troie N'aura Pas Lieu), translated by Christopher Fry (New York: OUP 1955).
2John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, ‘Cyberwar is Coming!’, Comparative Strategy 12/2 (1993), 141–65.
3William J. Lynn, ‘Defending a New Domain’, Foreign Affairs 89/5 (2010), 101.
4Richard A. Clarke, and Robert K. Knake, Cyber War (New York: Ecco 2010), 261.
5Lisa Daniel, ‘Panetta: Intelligence Community Needs to Predict Uprisings’, American Forces Press Service, 11 Feb. 2011.
6Michael Joseph Gross, ‘A Declaration of Cyber-War’, Vanity Fair, April 2011.
7Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege (Berlin: Ullstein 1832, 1980), 27.
8One of the most creative and important theoreticians of deterrence, Jack Gibbs, once pointed out that fear and the threat of force are integral ingredients of deterrence, ‘Unless threat and fear are stressed, deterrence is a hodgepodge notion.’ Jack P. Gibbs, ‘Deterrence Theory and Research’, in Gary Melton, Laura Nader and Richard A. Dienstbier (eds), Law as a Behavioral Instrument (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press 1986), 87.
9Thomas Mahnken, in a useful conceptual appraisal of cyber war, also uses Clausewitz's definition of war as violent, political, and ‘interactive’, and argues that the basic nature of war was neither fundamentally altered by the advent of nuclear weapons nor by cyber attack. Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘Cyber War and Cyber Warfare’, in Kristin Lord and Travis Sharp (eds), America's Cyber Future: Security and Prosperity in the Information Age, Vol. 2 (Washington DC: CNAS 2011), 53–62.
10Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 29.
11‘[Der Gegner] gibt mir das Gesetz, wie ich es ihm gebe’, ibid., 30.
12Ibid., 35.
13In Vom Kriege, Clausewitz uses similar phrases a few times. This quote is a translation of the heading of Book 1, Chapter 24, ‘Der Krieg ist einer bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln’, ibid., 44.
14This statement is not statement about the different levels of war: connecting between the political, strategic, operation, and tactical levels always remains a challenge.
15This problem has been extensively discussed also among legal scholars. For an excellent recent overview, see Matthew C. Waxman, ‘Cyber-Attacks and the Use of Force’, The Yale Journal of International Law 36 (2011), 421–59.
16For a particularly vividly told scenario, see the opening scene of Clarke and Knake, Cyber War.
17See, for instance, Yoram Dinstein, ‘Computer Network Attacks and Self-Defense’, International Law Studies 76 (2002), 103. Arguing from a legal perspective, Dinstein also stresses ‘violent consequences’.
18More on this argument, Waxman, ‘Cyber-Attacks and the Use of Force’, 436.
19Michael V. Hayden, ‘The Future of Things “Cyber”’, Strategic Studies Quarterly 5/1 (Spring 2011) 3.
20Thomas C. Reed, At the Abyss (New York: Random House 2004), 268–9.
21Clarke and Knake, Cyber War, 93.
22Anatoly Medetsky, ‘KGB Veteran Denies CIA Caused '82 Blast’, Moscow Times, 18 March 2004.
23An accidental gasoline explosion that occured in Bellingham, WA on 10 June 1999, is sometimes named as a violent cyber incident; three youths were killed. Although the relevant SCADA system was found directly accessible by dial-in modem, no evidence of hacking was uncovered in the official government report. See, National Transportation Safety Board, ‘Pipline Rupture and Subsequent Fire in Bellingham, Washington, June 10, 1999’, Pipeline Accident Report NTSB/PAR-02/02 (Washington DC, 2002), 64.
24Eneken Tikk, Kadri Kaska and Liis Vihul, International Cyber Incidents (Tallinn: CCDCOE 2010), 17.
25These disruptions were the worst of the entire ‘cyber war’ according to ibid., 20.
26‘Estonia has no evidence of Kremlin involvement in cyber attacks’, Ria Novosti, 6 Sept. 2007. It should also be noted that Russian activists and even a State Duma Deputy (although perhaps jokingly) have claimed to be behind the attacks, see Gadi Evron, ‘Authoritatively, Who was Behind the Estonian Attacks?’ Darkreading, 17 March 2009. See also, Gadi Evron, ‘Battling Botnets and Online Mobs’, Science & Technology (Winter/Spring 2008), 121–8.
27Tim Espiner, ‘Estonia's cyberattacks: lessons learned, a year on’, ZDNet UK, 1 May 2008.
28Андрей Злобин, Ксения Болецкая, ‘Электронная бомба,’ Be oмocmu [Andrey Zlobin and Xenia Boletskaya, ‘E-bomb’, Vedomosti] 28 May 2007, <http://bitly.com/g1M9Si>.
29The intensity of the attacks was high, with traffic reaching 211.66 Mbps on average, peaking at 814.33 Mbps, see Jose Nazario, ‘Georgia DDoS Attacks – A Quick Summary of Observations’, Security to the Core (Arbor Networks), 12 Aug. 2008.
30Eneken Tikk, Kadri Kaska, Kristel Rünnimeri, Mari Kert, Anna-Maria Talihärm and Liis Vihul, Cyber Attacks against Georgia (Tallinn: CCDCOE 2008), 12. Jeffrey Carr, a cyber security expert, published a report that concluded that Russia's Foreign Military Intelligence Agency (GRU) and Federal Security Service (FSB) probably helped coordinate the attacks, not independent patriotic hackers. But to date, this was neither proven nor admitted.
31David A. Fulghum, Robert Wall and Amy Butler, ‘Israel Shows Electronic Prowess’, Aviation Week & Space Technology 168, 25 Nov. 2007; David A. Fulghum, Robert Wall and Amy Butler, ‘Cyber-Combat's First Shot’, Aviation Week & Space Technology 167, 16 Nov. 2007, 28–31.
32John Markoff, ‘A silent attack, but not a subtle one’, New York Times, 26 Sept. 2010.
33Sally Adee, ‘The Hunt for the Kill Switch’, IEEE Spectrum, May 2008.
34Gross, ‘A Declaration of Cyber-War’.
35Ralph Langner, ‘What Stuxnet is All About’, The Last Line of Cyber Defense, 10 Jan. 2011.
36Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu and Eric Chien, W32.Stuxnet Dossier. Version 1.4 (Symantec 2011), 3.
37Ibid., 3.
38This is Ralph Langner's target theory. The question if Stuxnet's code 417 ‘warhead’ was disabled or not is controversial among engineers. See ibid., 45 as well as Ralph Langner, ‘Matching Langner's Stuxnet Analysis and Symantec's Dossier Update’, The Last Line of Cyber Defense, 21 Feb. 2011.
39Ralph Langner, ‘Cracking Stuxnet’, TED Talk, March 2011.
40William J. Broad, John Markoff and David E. Sanger, ‘Israeli test on worm called crucial in Iran nuclear delay’, New York Times, 16 Jan. 2011, A1.
41Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu and Eric Chien, W32.Stuxnet Dossier. Version 1.4 (Symantec 2011), 3.
42See Gary McGraw's discussion with Ralph Langner on Cigital's Silver Bullet, 25 Feb. 2011, <www.cigital.com/silverbullet/show-059/>.
43Ellen Nakashima and Brian Krebs, ‘Contractor blamed in DHS data breaches’, Washington Post, 24 Sept. 2007, A1.
44Bradley Graham, ‘Hackers attack via Chinese web sites’, Washington Post, 25 Aug. 2005.
45William J. Lynn, ‘Defending a New Domain’, Foreign Affairs 89/5 (2010), 97. Clarke says the spyware was of Russian origin, see next footnote.
46Clarke and Knake, Cyber War, 171.
47Ron Deibert, and Rafal Rohozinsky, Tracking Ghostnet (Toronto: Munk Centre for International Studies 2009), 47.
48Rhys Blakely, ‘MI5 alert on China's cyberspace spy threat’, The Times, 1 Dec. 2007, 1.
49Clarke and Knake, Cyber War, 232–4.
50Charles Arthur, ‘William Hague reveals hacker attack on Foreign Office in call for cyber rules’, Guardian, 6 Feb. 2011.
51‘Die Energie des Handels drückt die Stärke des Motivs aus, wodurch das Handel hervorgerufen wird, das Motiv mag nun in einer Verstandesüberzeugung oder einer Gemütserregung seinen Grund haben. Die letztere darf aber schwerlich fehlen, wo sich eine große Kraft zeigen soll.’ Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 69.
52David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger 1964), 71.
53For a historical discussion of ideology's role in guerrilla war, see Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla. A Historical and Critical Study (Boston: Little, Brown 1976).
54Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker, ‘The Terror Fringe’, Policy Review 158 (Dec./Jan. 2010), 3–19.
55For a more exhaustive list of politically motivated cyber-attacks, see Robin Gandhi, Anup Sharma, William Mahoney, William Sousan, Qiuming Zhu and Phillip Laplante, ‘Dimensions of Cyber Attacks’, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (Spring 2011), 28–38.
56A good analysis of Anonymous is Adrian Crenshaw, ‘Crude, Inconsistent Threat: Understanding Anonymous’, Irongeek.com, 28 March 2011, <http://bitly.com/e87PeA>.
57An explanation and a good introduction into the sense of humor of that subculture is at <http://ohinternet.com/Lulz>.
58In a video titled Jonas Brother Live On Stage, a viewer commented: ‘I'm 12 years old and what is this?’ The phrase, quoted in a BBC story, went on to become an Internet meme. Siobhan Courtney, ‘Pornographic videos flood YouTube’, BBC News, 21 May 2009.
60Peter Bright, ‘Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack’, Ars Technica, 15 Feb. 2011.
61Anonymous, ‘This Domain Has Been Seized …’, archived at <http://bitly.com/hWvZXs>.
62See ‘AnonyLulzyAntiSec, Just What Have You Done for Us Lately?,’ Krypt3ia, 22 July 2011, <http://bitly.com/qQJwiu>
63Charles Clover, ‘Kremlin-backed group behind Estonia cyber blitz’, Financial Times, 11 March 2009. See also Jose Nazario, ‘Politically Motivated Denial of Service Attacks’, in Christian Czosseck and Kenneth Geers (eds), The Virtual Battlefield, (Amsterdam; Washington, DC: IOS Press 2009), 163–81.
64Steven Adair, ‘Georgian Attacks: Remember Estonia?’, Shadow Server, 13 Aug. 2008.
65See also Jeffrey Carr, ‘Project Grey Goose Phase II Report’, GreyLogic, 20 March 2009, Chapter 2.
66Rain Ottis, ‘From Pitchforks to Laptops: Volunteers in Cyber Conflicts’, Conference on Cyber Conflict Proceedings (2010).
67See for instance, Martin Libicki, Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2009), 32–3.
68Ralph Langner, ‘A declaration of bankruptcy for US critical infrastructure protection’, The Last Line of Cyber Defense, 3 June 2011.
69See Roberta Stempfley and Sean McGurk, Testimony, US House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, 26 July 2011, 7, ‘[S]ophisticated malware of this type potentially has the ability to gain access to, steal detailed proprietary information from, and manipulate the systems that operate mission-critical processes within the nation's infrastructure.’
70In May 2011, the Obama White House stressed deterrence in cyberspace and made clear that ‘certain hostile acts conducted through cyberspace’ could trigger a military response by America (in using ‘all necessary means’, the document explicitly included military means). But the White House did not make clear what certain hostile acts (p. 14) or ‘certain aggressive acts in cyberspace’ (p. 10) actually mean, Barack Obama, International Strategy for Cyberspace (Washington, DC: White House, May 2011).