Computer Espionage

The next level of threat to the DOD and US national security is cyber espionage. This threat is likely to be the most difficult to distinguish because it may appear to be hacker activity and will intentionally avoid causing damage or harm in order to avoid detection. Although there is little information in the public domain about the use of computer hacking in foreign intelligence operations, there is no doubt that this activity is prevalent among most state intelligence agencies around the world....

Hacktivism

A new phenomenon in the spectrum of cyber conflict has emerged and can be described as electronic disobedience or hacktivism. Computerized activism operates in the tradition of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience and borrows the tactics of trespass and blockade from earlier social movements and applies them to the Internet. A typical civil disobedience tactic is a ”sit-in‘ in which groups of people physically blockade, with their bodies, the entranceways of an opponent's office or...

Cyber Crime (Illegal Exploration and Hacking)

The first type of computer attack combines several different types of unintentional actors into one category defined as cyber crime or "hacker". Although this category of hacker includes many kinds of cyber criminals, from a DOD perspective, the motivation of a hacker without intent to damage the national security of the United States is the importance difference. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate between cyber crime and other levels of computer attack because it will affect the type...

Types of Computer Attacks

This study will divide the types of computer attacks into two distinct categories based on the intent of the perpetrator of the computer intrusion. This differentiation can be defined as intentional cyber warfare attack (IA) with intentional actors (I-actors) or Unintentional cyber warfare attack (UA) with U-actors (unintentional cyber actors).1 An intentional cyber warfare attack (IA) is any attack through cyber-means to intentionally affect national security (cyber warfare) or to further operations...

Introduction

The United States must be able to deter computer attacks against our critical information infrastructure. A strong deterrence policy involves both a strong defense and the threat of retaliation or punishment. Despite a strong defense to deny cyber attackers access to our systems, we remain vulnerable because it is nearly impossible to stop all intrusions. Therefore, we must be able to punish or retaliate against individuals, sub-state groups or states that are responsible for cyber attacks. This...