Re-Analyzing Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwarfare

Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwarfare by Martin C. Libicki from the RAND corporation [1] was an interesting read but I noticed it contains many short-sighted descriptions and theories that can possibly lower the defensive and offensive posture of any government, military, or private sector industry that views the opinion as a "de-facto" source, to be relied upon. My perspective comes from some of the statements and assumptions that the author makes.

For example, Libicki states: "Cyberattacks Are Possible Only Because Systems Have Flaws." [1 pp 14] Unsure if this statement comes from the knowledge available to the author at the time, or if this is what the author truly believed and or believes at present time.

A computing system will always have some form of flaw, however, to think that this is the only possibility that an attack will be successful, is also flawed. Rather than get into a long discussion of the successes and failures of computing systems, I would like to point out the obvious, that humans are flawed often moreso than computers, the programs and or code on those systems. An establishment can create complex mechanisms and rules to secure systems to the Nth degree, but human error can cause the security of those systems to fail repeatedly.

No more was this evident than in the cases of Bradley Manning [2] and Robert Hanssen [3 pp. 28–33]. These two had access to classified and "air gapped" [4] systems. Policies, controls and deterrents were put in place yet all failed allowing the men to cause real damage. While one can question whether Manning and Hanssen are relevant to the cyberwarfare discussion, the relevancy here stems from the erroneous statement that "Cyberattacks Are Possible Only Because Systems Have Flaws."...

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...arfare. No more was this evident than in the Stuxnet infection which affected Iran [6] and in the demonstration by Idaho National Labs which destroyed a generator. [7]

Anyhow, I will continue to read the book as it is an interesting read. Hopefully the thinkers can broaden their scope of cyberwarfare using "outside the box" information.

Works Cited

[1] Cyberdeterrence and cyberwar / Martin C. Libicki. ISBN 978-0-8330-4734-2

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning

[3] Wise, David (2003), Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America, Random House Publishers, ISBN 0375758941

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_%28networking%29

[5] http://www.honeynet.org/node/157

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

[7] http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-26/us/power.at.risk_1_generator-cyber-attack-electric-infrastructure?_s=PM:US