Military Officer - June 2008 - (Page 64)

is better served by capabilities enabling us to take the ﬁght to our adversaries,” Cartwright says. To achieve that end, Washington is moving on several fronts: I Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTFGNO), under STRATCOM, has taken the lead in operating and defending the GIG — and pursuing “global information superiority.” I Elder is standing up the Cyberspace Command. “I believe we’re going to be able to ratchet up our capabil- Cyberterrorism Threat? As cyberterrorism becomes of growing concern in the war on terror, two experts shared their thoughts with Military Officer. For more, visit www.moaa.org/ militarymatters. According to Dr. Lani Kass, special assistant to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, and an integral part of developing a national strategy for combating terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, the key problem with cyberterrorism is its anonymity. “Cyberspace is ideally suited for people who hide in the shadows, who have a lot of money, [and] who can hire people who have the expertise,” Kass says. “You can hide, and more importantly, you can pretend to be someone else. The amount of damage you can cause [via cyberspace] to an advanced, industrialized nation is absolutely unquantifiable.” Maj. Gen. William T. Lord, USAF, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command at Barksdale AFB, echoes Kass, saying, “You’ve seen the news of what cyberterrorists and cybercriminals are doing — and the price of admission into this kind of warfare is the price of a laptop and into the network.” Cyberspace terrorism is not limited to only e-mails and viruses, either. “It’s the entire electromagnetic spectrum,” Lord says. Even tampering with one part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which controls everything that has an electrical charge — think alarm clocks, microwaves, and GPS systems — could create a cascading effect that could wreak havoc on a nation. “Throughout the history of warfare, anything on which people depended always became a target for the enemy,” Kass says. “I cannot think about anything the entire western civilization depends more on than cyberspace. It links the universe together.” Anticipating and preventing security breeches remains the top priority. “In cyberspace, if you build higher walls and moats,” Kass says, “You just make it more difficult for the enemy who is already inside to get out.” 64 MILITARY OFFICER JUNE 2008 ity,” Elder predicts, adding, “We want to go in and knock them out in the ﬁrst round” of a full-blown cyberwar. I As Government Executive has detailed, the Army is soliciting “a wide range of offensive information tools.” Likewise, the Air Force is teaming with industry to develop cyberweapons that “disrupt, deny, degrade, or deceive an adversary’s information system.” I The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is ﬁelding what the International Herald Tribune cleverly calls an “information highway patrol,” including some 2,000 personnel, to help protect America’s information infrastructure. I In early 2006, just a year before the one-sided Web war on Estonia, DHS led a preparedness exercise dubbed Cyber Storm that enfolded numerous federal and state agencies, four foreign allies, seven power utilities, 11 information technology ﬁrms, STRATCOM, JTF-GNO, and other nodes of DoD. A Dark days ccording to the CRS, 80 percent of U.S. commerce depends on the Internet, which means an Estonian-style attack on America could have grave economic consequences — both here and abroad. Many Americans fume when mobile phones take an extra minute to dial a call, when the credit card machine at the gas station goes down, when the nearest ATM is out of service, or even when we can’t connect to the Web. Now, consider how three weeks of that electronic isolation would affect your life, your banking, your job, and the global economy. Add to that the potential danger to public safety, public health, and national security. After all, far more than commerce depends on cyberspace. DHS recently released a video dramatizing the effect of computer attacks on the U.S. electrical grid. But we don’t have to imagine the impact of a massive power-grid failure — just consider the chaos that followed the East Coast blackout in August 2003. New York City, Detroit, Toronto, and Ottawa went dark. There were riots in Ottawa; nine nuclear reactors were knocked ofﬂine; six major airports were shut down; hospitals and prisons lost power; cellular towers failed; millions baked in the sweltering summer heat — and none of this was the result of a malicious attack. “Cyberwar doesn’t make you bleed,” Ene Ergma, the speaker of the Estonian parliament, told Wired magazine. “But it can destroy everything.” This is no time for Y2K-style panic, but it is time for preparation. It is better to prepare for the worst and hope for the best rather than prepare for the best and put our hopes in the self-restraint of those who wish us harm. MO http://www.moaa.org/

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Military Officer - June 2008 Contents MOAA Online From the Editor From the President Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire MOAA Member Services Washington Scene Chapters in Action Financial Forum Ask the Doctor MOAA Scholarship Donors Cover Story: Mission to Modernize World War Web Playing to Win Fitness in Numbers Fighting Infection Pages of History Faces of MOAA Information Exchange Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps Encore

Military Officer - June 2008

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