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May 31, 2011
Cyber-terrorism and cyber-espionage have become significant threats to the way we live. Tracing the progress of integration between modern society and the internet, we see that Canadian and international security interests are increasingly linked to cyberspace. Indeed, a new suite of threats to national and international security has presented itself to policy-makers. The recent global trend towards the militarization of cyberspace has served to exacerbate the need for governments to plan for, and take action to prevent, such threats. Accordingly, Canada has recently released a national Cyber-Security Policy – as have Australia, Britain, the U.S., and most other technologically advanced nations. At the international-policy level, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN) have made recommendations to underwrite regarding this issue, and have an international computer-security treaty.
Like the internet itself, the suite of threats stemming from cyber-terrorism and cyber-espionage is complex. In order to understand this complexity, it is helpful to distinguish two groups of considerations: technical and policy. Moreover, the linkages between these two groups of considerations are also important.
Cyber-attacks feed off the way the internet works. Given the transnational nature of cyberspace, almost everything that has anything to do with it is essentially international in scope. Thus, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are particularly important considerations: There are about 10 IXPs in Canada that control all the information that goes in and out (most of which is going to the U.S.). However, cyber-attacks can originate from internal or external locales.
Cyber-terrorism comes in many variations and is usually very inexpensive to pull off. It primarily relies on malicious code, Trojan horses, viruses, and denial-of-service (DoS) messages like those that were seen in Estonia in 2007. These tools can be used in very versatile ways, from debilitating online commercial services to setting up remote surveillance. Experts do not believe that cyber-terrorism currently has the capacity to take out critical infrastructure. However, as technology develops, so will cyber-terrorism. In recent years, cyber-espionage has proven to be pervasive in geopolitics. Spies can infect computers by sending encrypted emails, and can even turn on webcams remotely. Indeed, the complexity of the internet makes it very difficult to isolate the source of cyber-attacks. As a result, the digital nature of government and military information makes it even more vulnerable.
By Victor Platt. Continue reading this article online at themarknews.com.