Cyberwarfare in South Korea

Cyberwarfare in South Korea

 

With ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea's defense ministry stated that South Korea was going to improve cyber-defense strategies in hopes of preparing itself from possible cyber attacks. In March 2013, South Korea's major banks – Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank and NongHyup Bank – as well as many broadcasting stations – KBS, YTN and MBC – were hacked and more than 30,000 computers were affected; it is one of the biggest attacks South Korea has faced in years. Although it remains uncertain as to who was involved in this incident, there has been immediate assertions that North Korea is connected, as it threatened to attack South Korea's government institutions, major national banks and traditional newspapers numerous times – in reaction to the sanctions it received from nuclear testing and to the continuation of Foal Eagle, South Korea's annual joint military exercise with the United States. North Korea's cyber warfare capabilities raise the alarm for South Korea, as North Korea is increasing its manpower through military academies specializing in hacking. Current figures state that South Korea only has 400 units of specialized personnel, while North Korea has more than 3,000 highly trained hackers; this portrays a huge gap in cyber warfare capabilities and sends a message to South Korea that it has to step up and strengthen its Cyber Warfare Command forces. Therefore, in order to be prepared from future attacks, South Korea and the United States will discuss further about deterrence plans at the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM). At SCM, they plan on developing strategies that focuses on accelerating the deployment of ballistic missiles as well as fostering its defense shield program, known as the Korean Air and Missile Defense.

Cyberwarfare in India

 Cyberwarfare in India

The Department of Information Technology created the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) in 2004 to thwart cyber attacks in India. That year, there were 23 reported cyber security breaches. In 2011, there were 13,301. That year, the government created a new subdivision, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) to thwart attacks against energy, transport, banking, telecom, defence, space and other sensitive areas. The Executive Director of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) stated in February 2013 that his company alone was forced to block up to ten targeted attacks a day. CERT-In was left to protect less critical sectors.

A high profile cyber attack on 12 July 2012 breached the email accounts of about 12,000 people, including those of officials from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). A government-private sector plan being overseen by National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon began in October 2012, and intends to beef up India's cyber security capabilities in the light of a group of experts findings that India faces a 470,000 shortfall of such experts despite the country's reputation of being an IT and software powerhouse.

In February 2013, Information Technology Secretary J. Satyanarayana stated that the NCIIPC^{[page needed]} was finalizing policies related to national cyber security that would focus on domestic security solutions, reducing exposure through foreign technology. Other steps include the isolation of various security agencies to ensure that a synchronised attack could not succeed on all fronts and the planned appointment of a National Cyber Security Coordinator. As of that month, there had been no significant economic or physical damage to India related to cyber attacks.

Cyberwarfare in China

Cyberwarfare in China

 

A 2008 article in the Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies by Jason Fritz alleges that the Chinese government from 1995 to 2008 was involved in a number of high profile cases of espionage, primarily through the use of a "decentralized network of students, business people, scientists, diplomats, and engineers from within the Chinese Diaspora". A defector in Belgium, purportedly an agent, claimed that there were hundreds of spies in industries throughout Europe, and on his defection to Australia Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin said there were over 1,000 such in that country. In 2007, a Russian executive was sentenced to 11 years for passing information about the rocket and space technology organization to China. Targets in the United States have included ‘aerospace engineering programs, space shuttle design, C4ISR data, high-performance computers, Nuclear weapon design, cruise missile data, semiconductors, integrated circuit design, and details of US arms sales to Taiwan’.

While China continues to be held responsible for a string of cyber-attacks on a number of public and private institutions in the United States, India, Russia, Canada, and France, the Chinese government denies any involvement in cyber-spying campaigns. The administration maintains the position that China is not the threat but rather the victim of an increasing number of cyber-attacks. Most reports about China's cyber warfare capabilities have yet to be confirmed by the Chinese government.

According to Fritz, China has expanded its cyber capabilities and military technology by acquiring foreign military technology. Fritz states that the Chinese government uses "new space-based surveillance and intelligence gathering systems, Anti-satellite weapon, anti-radar, infrared decoys, and false target generators" to assist in this quest, and that they support their "informationization" of the their military through "increased education of soldiers in cyber warfare; improving the information network for military training, and has built more virtual laboratories, digital libraries and digital campuses. Through this informationization, they hope to prepare their forces to engage in a different kind of warfare, against technically capable adversaries. Many recent news reports link China's technological capabilities to the beginning of a new ‘cyber cold war.’

 

Ethics of Cyber Conflict 

In the age of the so-called information revolution, the ability to control, disrupt or manipulate the enemy’s information infrastructure has become as decisive as weapon superiority with respect to determining the outcome of conflicts. So much so that Pentagon’s definition of cyberspace as a new domain in which war is waged, alongside land, sea, air and space, comes as no surprise.

The deployment of cyber conflicts as part of a state’s defensive or offensive strategy is a fast growing phenomenon, which is rapidly changing the dynamics of combat as well as the role that warfare plays in political negotiations and the life of civil societies. Such changes are not the exclusive concern of the military, for they also have a bearing on ethicists and policymakers, since existing ethical theories of war, together with national and international regulations, struggle to address the novelties of this phenomenon.  

The issue could not be more pressing and there is a much felt and fast escalating need to share information and coordinate ethical theorising about cyber conflicts. Contributions to the workshop will address issues concerning the way ICTs are affecting our ethical views of conflicts and warfare, as well as the analysis of just-war principles in the light of the dissemination of cyber conflicts; humanitarian military interventions based on ICTs; whether preventive acts of cyber war may satisfy jus-ad-bellum criteria; challenges of upholding jus-in-bello standards in cyber warfare, especially in asymmetric conflicts; attribution and proportionality of the response to cyber attacks; moral permissibility of automated responses and ethical deployment of military robotic weapons.