The Cyber Battle Is Real And Here Now

A good attack strategy is one that arrives from many different directions. The game of chess is a perfect example. When attacking one of your opponent's pieces, the best plan is to arrive from several different directions. While your opponent is looking in one direction, you attack from another one and have supporting pieces to remove their avenue of escape.

The the global climate of today indicates that we are certainly in a battle on a cyber level. While some may deny it, it certainly does exist. And, the cyber battle exists all over the world. Within the Great Britain the governing body House of Lords believe United Kingdom would be able to endure a cyber attack. The United Kingdom's Shadow Security Minister believes “the current government and the private entities will be able to completely protect the nation's information environment”. In the government of the United States, the former Director National Intelligence fully believes the United States is definitely in a cyber battle while Howard Schmidt, the president's new cyber security czar, takes a firm stand that we are not in a cyber war and it is a concept we should not believe.

Conflicting beliefs such as these are part of the problem. One of the best ways to confuse your enemies is to attack from different fronts. Terrorist cells that make money from the sale of drugs perpetuate the war on drugs that America has declared for the past 30 years or more. It is a direction of attack. Cyber criminals who use information technology to attack information and financial sectors are a second direction of attack, just like chess. Continue striking against your enemy from many different directions and you weaken their defenses.

The former Chief Technology Officer of the United States National Security Agency, Dr. Prescott Winter, states that a cyber battle is hard to give a definition, and the problem the United States government has been trying to confine without a definite answer. Dr. Winter believes part of the problem is trying to determine the elemental origin and hostile aggressions or their primary purpose. Dr. Winter said, "This is due to the fact an attack can be started from systems other than ones belonging to the attacker, and in many instances with many layers of disguise.” Dr. Winter also believes it is a very difficult task to determine and categorize their acts as one of espionage related, a criminal act, or an act related to warfare.

The director of government relations for Symantec Corp. located in your the Middle East and Africa, has said, “The current state of cyber attack would be a deliberate action posed by a government or state containing a sincere motivation to disrupt, hinder, or cripple online security capabilities or entities of another government for the sole reasons of achieving an advantage in the fight and gain of a higher purpose. Those advantages could arrive as various benefits including economic or technology values.”

Rodney Joffe, who works with the London Met e-Crime unit and Interpol, lectured to the United States Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet within the White House about a cyber war. “We have been deeply involved in attacks of this nature since the begining of the early 2000s. The many enemies include but are not limited to various criminal entities, political ideas, and national facets such as particular nations and terrorist groups.” Rodney Joffe provides examples including large-scale denial of service attacks for extortion, information extractions of financial credentials through the use of botnets, and the interconnected attacks by Russia against Georgia within the cyberspace while tanks entered the Georgia borders in the year 2008.

The director of security strategy at McAfee, Greg Day, believes "as the United Kingdom is at the moment not involved in a cyber conflict, it is always fighting against an increasing amount of daily cyber breaches and possible intrusions, while not deep enough to be called a definitive warfare, utilizes the complete hackers toolbox from denial of service attempts of intrusion.” Research conducted in the area of virtual criminology by McAfee Corp. has brought Greg Day to the conclusion “the United States, France, Russia, Israel and China are primary nations who are showing the way in the creation of new defenses preparing for the coming years of cyber attacks.” When Greg Day was asked the question how businesses can protect themselves from a cyber battle, Greg responded, “Those that seek to quietly siphon off vital data for political gain will use more and higher schemes to commit their crimes. An individual seeking to target critical environments is closely related to an attacker using tactics created to cause a maximum amount of chaos.”

The chief technology officer of Imperva concurs techniques and methods used for cyber battle would be the exact same techniques used by a hacker but their focus on a particular target would be different. “It is highly critical to remember that cyber hackers are concentrating on attacking groups and enterprises from the exterior, while at the same moment governments or cells of terrorists using cyber conflicts could attack from the interior using compromised personnel.” Dr. Winter also reminds us there are different methods and procedures to begin a cyber attack that do not utilize overtly hostile characteristics, such as “abusing social networks, injecting attacks and bringing the attacker within the systems of the victim.” Dr. Winter accepts the largest risk are “the ones with the largest cyber environments and the largest dependency with those that can be utilized to gain the highest thrust.”

As different corporations and industries carry a variety of different risk, financial sectors such as banking or a larger and more visible target that industries who do not rely as much on information technology or industries that are not business or consumer concentric. Rodney Joffe said, “cyber criminals have figured out their efforts most effective in locations where the most money is, because the economy is simpler to gain entry from an attack through cyberspace.”

Due to our large dependency of the Internet and current to future network technologies, information security and a defensive posture against cyber attacks have risen in importance. A strong, solid, encompassing information security training course should be in the minds of many organizations and enterprises seeking to strengthen their security boundaries from all levels and attacks. CISSP CBT training is a readily available training course detailing several areas of information intrusion prevention. Cryptography, operations security, security architect and design, access control, security regulations, security investigations, compliance, and more are part of the information security certification training. K Alliance is a source of the data security training.

About Us: Learning Planet boasts a huge collection of online training videos and computer-based DVDs. The self-paced, self-study and extremely informative learning planet courses are huge benefit to individuals and organizations seeking the best in IT training. PMP project management training assists project managers everywhere with project management best practices delivering solid results and successful expectations. When you require comprehensive training courses, Learning Planet is your answer.