Cyber Warfare

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Cyber Warfare

Mr. Niv David

 

Course description

The digital age and the information revolution of the 20th century, introduced humanity with vast technological and cultural changes. Warfare, a significant demonstration of the human technological culture, has accordingly changed dramatically. These changes include the introduction of new technologies, concepts and war fighting doctrines, challenging classic strategic thinking and reshaping warfare, strategy, risk management and national security. Cyberspace and cyber warfare, a new domain of warfare, are no longer science fiction, and cyber risks are considered a primary concern of risk assessments by the World Economic Forum, governments and global organizations. This seminar will provide a systematic review of the interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional field of Cyber: What is included in this broad, somewhat illusive, concept, where do cyber warfare and cyber operations belong among classic warfare domains, what are the strategic changes in defense and offence that cyber warfare presents, who are the global players and the effects of cyber warfare on civilian life, global economy, politics and military. Students who successfully complete the course should gain an understanding of the cyber landscape and the ability to assess the significance of various threats, an understanding of key themes in cyber security debate and the ability to critically analyze arguments, and to distinguish between research and sub-par contribution.


 

Lessons 1-2 : Introduction – Analog humanity in a digital world

Development of the digital computers in the 20th century created the information age, cyber space and the cyber domain. The lesson will focus on the on the definition of the information (or digital) age, its uniqueness in human history, what actually is cyber, why it became such a buzz in recent years, and what do we all do about it. The lesson will also examine the global players, super powers, friends and foes in the cyber domain. Not only countries take part in this game of thorns but also new non-governmental organization such as Anonymous. We will discuss the nature of the emerging cyber forces and their interrelations.

Sources:

 Ben-Israel Isaac and Tabansky Lior. "An Interdisciplinary Look at Security Challenges in the Information Age", Military and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 3 No 3, December2

 Even Shmuel, Siman-Tov David, Cyber Warfare: Concepts and Strategic Trends, INSS 2012

 Cyber War documentary, PBS 2003

Optional: Toffler Alvin and Toffler Heidi. War and Anti-War, Warner Books, New York 1993

 

Lesson 3: Information Technology for “Dummies”

Cyber is not only about technology, but technology is the basis to it all. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the concepts and building blocks of contemporary information technologies (hardware, software, data communications and networking, operating systems etc.) and the Internet as a background for further discussion.

Sources:

 How does the Internet work?

http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/there_and_back_again_a_packets_tale

 Townes, Miles. "The Spread of Tcp/Ip: How the Internet Became the Internet." Millennium - Journal of International Studies 41, no. 1 (September 1, 2012 2012): 43-64.

 

Lessons 4–5: Cyber weapons, technological vulnerabilities, hacking and human perceptual manipulation

a. Software development and probability of "bad" code.

b. Digital warheads, weaponised code, malware and recent trends.

c. Online attacks vs. Offline attacks.

d. Sophisticated cyber-attacks such as Stuxnet, the RSA/Lockheed Martin breach, SONY pictures ets.

e. The Human factor – Social engineering and psychological aspects, Phishing, Spear Phishing and APT (Advanced Persistent Threat).

 

Sources:

 Long Johnny, No Tech Hacking (Video)

 Mitnick Kevin D. The Art of Deception, Wiley, USA 2002

 Peterson, Dale. "Offensive Cyber Weapons: Construction, Development, and Employment." [In English]. Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 1 (2013): 120-24.

 

Lesson 6: Critical infrastructure protection, models and dilemmas in the use of cyber weapons

Cyber warfare changes war fighting as it aims not only militaries but also civilian population and critical national infrastructure. However, traditional treaties, global

laws and rules of combat do not necessarily apply to cyber warfare. We will discuss these subjects and the attempts to formalize cyber warfare by NATO (the Tallinn manual) and others.

 

Sources:

 Tabansky Lior. "Critical Infrastructure Protection against Cyber Threats", Military and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 3 No 2, November 2011 (online:

Optional: Sanger David E., Confront and Conceal: Obama's secret wars and surprising use of American power, Crown Publishers, New York 2012

 

Lesson 7: Cybercrime, Darknet and the global Economic Impacts (guest speaker: Guy Mizrahi, CEO, Cyberia)

Cybercrime has evolved to become a major global threat, not only to individuals and organizations, but also to national security. The discussion will focus on the various types of cybercrime, the technology behind it, its global economic impacts and the legal and practical challenges of fighting cybercrime by states.

 

Sources:

 Anderson et. al, "Measuring the cost of cybercrime", 11th workshop on the Economics of Information Security, Berlin, Germany 2012

 McAfee report on The economic impact of cybercrime and cyber espionage, Center for strategic and International studies, July 2013

 

Lesson 8: Cyber Intelligence, Espionage, Surveillance and Deception

The changing domain of global Intelligence and deception operations and the emergence of CYBERINT and NETINT as new intelligence tools which practically change intelligence gathering and research.

 

Sources:

 APT1 – Exposing one of China's Cyber Espionage Units, Mandiant Report, 2013

 State of the Hack, Mandiant Report, June 2013

 

Lesson 9: Operational military practice of Cyber Warfare, Terror and Deterrence

Cyber warfare has been considered for many years as a force multiplier but is gradually becoming a standalone weapon and means of war fighting "fire power". We will discuss the materialization of cyber warfare in modern armies, evolving doctrines and relation to processes such as RMA in the 1990's and changes in the American and Russian doctrines for the usage of cyber force, as demonstrated in Georgia, Estonia etc. National Security. We shall also discuss cyber terror and how can we define it, cyber guerilla and why is cyber deterrence so challenging. We will discuss the many questions and challenges related to the matter and try to come up with some answers…

 

Sources:

 Schweitzer Yoram, Siboni Gabi and Yogev Einav. "Cyberspace and Terrorist Organizations", Military and Strategic Affairs, Volume 3 no.3, December 2011

 Lupovici Amir. "Cyber Warfare and Deterrence: Trends and Challenges in Research", Military and Strategic Affairs, Volume 3 no.3, December 2011

 

Optional:

 Adamsky Dima, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Isra]el, Stanford University Press, Stanford 2010

 Rid Thomas, Cyber war will not take place, Hurst, London 2013

 

Lessons 10–11: Cyber Security & Information Security

* On May 27th there will also be a guest talk by Colonel (res.) Ami Shilo, head of the civilian sector, Israel National Cyber Bureau, Prime Minister’s office (this talk might move due to another date).

Cyber offensives of recent years and new cyber weapons introduced to the global arena challenge conventional defense and security paradigms, both technological and operational. Nevertheless, the majority of organization and governments still hold anachronistic practices of information security and cyber defense. The purpose of this lesson is to present how do global and state regulations shape the information security domain, what technologies are used for cyber protection and how they should be properly deployed to maximize their effect.

 

Sources:

 Anderson Ross, "Why Information Security is Hard: An economic perspective", Computer Security Applications Conference, 2001. pp. 358-365 (online: http://www.acsac.org/2001/papers/110.pdf)

Optional: Singh Simon. The Code Book: The science of secrecy from ancient Egypt to quantum cryptography, Anchor books, New York 1999

 

Lesson 12 (June 3rd): Personal meetings for seminar papers

 

Lesson 13 (June 10th): Summary – is Cyber war coming? Where do we go from here?

 

Suggested Reading

Additional items will be suggested throughout the course according to emerging events and recent publications. Most reading items are available online.

Clarke Richard E, Cyber war: The next threat to National Security and what to do about it, Ecco, USA 2010

Healey J (Ed.), A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace 1986-2012, CCSA, USA 2013

Kello Lucas, "The meaning of the cyber revolution: Perils to theory and statecraft", International Security, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 7–40

Mitnick Kevin D., The Art of Intrusion, Wiley, USA 2005

Owens W.A, Dam K.W, Lin H.S (Ed.), Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition, and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities, Committee on offensive Information Warfare, National Research Council 2009. Online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12651

 

Cyber security blogs, online reports, movies and documentaries:

* There are numerous professional blogs, cyber news websites and analysis papers by major cyber vendors. This is just an example of some of the leading ones.

Brian Krebs – Krebs on Security - http://krebsonsecurity.com/

Bruce Schneier - http://www.schneier.com/

Digital Bond – Scada Security - http://www.digitalbond.com

Symantec – www.symatec.com

Kaspersky Labs – www.kaspersky.com

War Games (1983), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567

 

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