Cyber wars and Chinese time bombs
We’re all familiar with the damage that hackers do in the corporate world, if not to our home systems, but Abigail believes that an international war on cyber terrorism is looming that – if it won’t explode our laptops – will see so many restrictions placed on our use of the Internet that for many of us the convenience of a home internet service won’t be worth the constant fear of being treated like an enemy of the state if we venture off designated sites.
“Most people in the IT world are familiar with organized cyber attacks coming from certain parts of the world,” says Abigail. “Unlike the suburban kiddie scripters and hackers we’ve come to know in the western world – who hack for lulz or to put right perceived wrongs –the international cyber attackers are ‘soldiers’ every bit as dangerous as guys with guns.”
“Most of these cyber attacks are coming from China,” says Abigail, “but Iran and India are also engaging in cyber warfare.”
“It’s difficult to imagine that China – which already owns the western world financially – would have any reason to engage in cyber warfare against debtor nations,” says Abigail, “unless, of course, they feared we could default on payments.”
“And it’s similarly difficult to imagine that a democracy like India would engage in cyber warfare against fellow democracies,” says Abigail, “unless, of course, it considers itself to be so technologically advanced that it deserves to lead the world rather than remain in the backwaters.”
“That leaves Iran,” says Abigail, “but in view of the fact the US and Israel allegedly devised the Stuxnet computer worm to do more harm to Iranian nuclear centrifuge computers than an air raid strike could, we must ask ourselves who is starting this war and why would the US and Israel set loose an IT virus that can be used against them, too?”
“The IT security firm McAfee maintains that in the past five years at least 72 governments and international organizations have been subjected to cyber warfare from suspect nations,” says Abigail. “At the start of 2011 Google reported a year-long attack on American corporations to steal intellectual property; in February there was an attempt to hack secrets about the Trident missile system; in June the IMF was hacked; and in July the Pentagon reported a hack that had successfully obtained 24,000 files, including missile tracking and remote drone files.”
“The US recently declared that cyber attacks are an act of war and the UK claims cyber warfare as ‘one of the principal threats’ and all fingers point to China,” says Abigail, “but China claims that it has suffered more cyber attacks than any other country and that it wants to work together with the West to improve IT security for everyone’s benefit in some sort of international charter on data security.”
“Frankly, in a world where bodies set up to stop hacking are themselves being hacked; every nation on earth being involved in ‘official’ hacking operations to gain military and commercial secrets; and outsourcing of IT labor and manufacturing to countries such as China, Korea and India (involving giving these countries 20 year's worth of our research and expertise) is it any wonder we are now having these problems?”
“If military establishments do not have the smarts to counter cyber warfare then they should get back to pen and paper,” says Abigail. “That may save them, but it surely won’t save the rest of us who, for all we know, have Chinese time bombs ticking away in our laptops!”
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