State-Sponsored Cyber Warfare

INTRODUCTION

Cyber Warfare is the use of digital attacks to attack a nation, causing equivalent harm to actual warfare and or disrupting the vital computer systems. There is significant debate among experts regarding the definition of cyber warfare, and even if such a thing exists. One idea is that the term "cyber warfare" is a misnomer, since no offensive cyber actions to date could be described as "war". Another idea is that "cyber warfare" is a suitable label for cyber-attacks which cause physical damage to people and objects in the real world.

While there is debate on over how to define and use "cyber warfare" as a term, many countries including the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, China, Israel, Iran, and North Korea have active cyber capabilities for offensive and defensive operations. As states explore the use of cyber operations and combine capabilities the possibility of physical clash and violence playing out as a result of, or part of, a cyber-operation is increased. However, the scale and prolonged nature of war is unlikely, so ambiguity remains.

Cyber-attacks cost very little when compared to traditional military operations. Furthermore, they are generally easier to carry out. With their great deniability, they typically have far less consequences to the attacker. These are all reasons why state-sponsored cyber-attacks are a thing.

The Time before and after Stuxnet

Anthony Joe Melgarejo from F-Secure’s Tactical Defense Unit says, “When people talk about state-sponsored cyber-attacks, we commonly hear about the time before and after Stuxnet”. Stuxnet was a malware used by the US and Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities. In 2010, its discovery changed the game. States suddenly realized that they could utilize cyber-attacks in achieving their political, commercial, and military goals.

Before the Stuxnet incident cyber security was more concerned about hackers and cyber criminals. Their motivation is mainly to gain money. State-sponsored cyber-attacks don’t necessarily involve financial goals at all. Because they are funded by states, such attackers can have far superior capabilities when compared to those rogue hackers.

What are State-Sponsored Cyber-Attacks?

States can directly employ hackers through their militaries or government authorities. States can also fund them indirectly. This makes it easier to deny the involvement of a state if the attack was ever discovered. This in turn decreases the diplomatic consequences these attacks can have. It also blurs the line among criminal organizations and government groups. The state-sponsored units then target the adversaries of their funders for different reasons. 

IN DEPTH ANALYSIS ABOUT STATE-SPONSORED CYBER WARFARE

Cyber-attacks have become a vital part of modern warfare. It combines all kinds of hostile actions that are used to accomplish goals. Hybrid warfare can involve orthodox military operations, cyber-attacks, misinformation and supporting local separatist groups. Such tactics have been lately used, by Russia against Ukraine for an example.

Hard to Detect & Easy to Deny

Obviously, states are not the only parties behind cyber-attacks. Criminal groups and terrorists are also some of the parties out there. As they are well funded, equipped and trained, state-sponsored attacks are not easy to detect. Even if the attack is exposed, it can simply look like someone else was behind it. Proving that a state was behind any cyber-attack can be very hard. This makes cyber-attacks an effective and fairly risk-free option for the states to use.

The first instance of a dynamic military action used in retaliation to a cyber-attack resulting in the loss of human life was observed on 5 May 2019, when the Israel Defense Forces targeted and destroyed a building associated with an on-going cyber-attack.

The Motivations for Attacks

State associated or sponsored actors often have particular objectives aligned with the interests of either the political, commercial, or military interests of their country of origin. This is done mostly via the targeting of third party companies as a means to help and achieve those objectives. What actors are often trying to gain in these attacks is information about their targets, or access to their targets through trusted relationships with a third party company.

Often the sensitive nature of data being held by a third party is not fully appreciated or the company may not consider itself a target of a national state. Thus it often doesn’t have the level of prevention, detection, and response capabilities to prevent these state-sponsored attacks.

Methodologies used in state-sponsored attacks

Wherever possible, state-sponsored actors try to use standard attack methodologies used by other typical cyber-criminals and penetration testers. They do like that because they work incredibly effectively and are so common they can’t be recognized to any particular group. These usually involve targeted phishing emails followed by use of recent, known exploits the victim may not have gotten around to covering.

When they have a foothold, actors often move sideways into share servers and other systems where they can steal privileged credentials. From there they, stick mostly to using admin tools like normal system administrator, they rarely use malware, and they perform in a persistent, long term, and relatively quiet & unobtrusive way, just like a parasite.

Any decent state sponsored actor’s going to persist in their targeted networks without their knowledge or much effect for months or even years before discovery. Only when a company is highly mature in its security position and is a high value target, and generic attacks fail, will they resort to using costly 0-day malware developed internally.

The Challenge of Detection

The majority of organizations find out about a cyber-security attack when someone else told them about it. Most types of attack are often observable in a short period of time, whether hacktivism, opportunistic or financially motivated. This is because they lead to public revelation, fraud, or often resource utilization through DDoS.

State-sponsored actors rarely make a lot of noise and cause sufficient disturbance to warrant suspicion or trigger detection. Their objective is to remain persistent to retain oversight of communications, or access to the sensitive data.

Also, they will also often plant persistence mechanisms (hidden malware) on systems throughout victim networks which may remain unscathed or dormant for years. These can remain practically invisible until the victim attempts to extract them and, just as the victim thinks it was successful, the actors will utilize these to walk straight back in and continue operations.

Types of Warfare

Cyber warfare can present a multitude of threats towards any nation. At the simplest level, cyber-attacks can be used to support traditional warfare. For instance, tampering with the operation of air defenses thru cyber means in order to facilitate an air attack. Apart from these "hard" threats, cyber warfare can also contribute towards "soft" threats like espionage and propaganda.

Espionage

Traditional espionage is not an act of war, nor is cyber-espionage, and both are normally assumed to be ongoing between major world powers. Regardless of this theory, some incidents can cause serious tensions between nations, and are frequently described as "attacks". For example:

• Massive spying by the US on many countries, revealed by Edward Snowden.
• After the NSA's spying on Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel was revealed, the Chancellor compared the NSA with the Stasi.
• PRISM: a secret surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Google.
• The NSA recording nearly every cell phone conversation in the Bahamas, without the Bahamian government's permission, and similar programs in Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico and Afghanistan.
• The "Titan Rain" probes of American defense contractors computer systems since 2003.
• The Office of Personnel Management data breach, in the US, widely attributed to China.
• The security firm Area 1 published details of a breach that compromised one of the European Union's diplomatic communication channels for three years.

Out of all cyber-attacks, 25% of them are espionage based.

Sabotage

Computers and satellites that coordinate other activities are vulnerable components of a system and could lead to the disruption of equipment. Compromise of military systems, like components that are responsible for orders and communication could lead to their interception or malicious replacement. Power, water, fuel, communication, and transportation infrastructure all may be vulnerable to disruption. According to Clarke, the civilian territory is also at risk, noting that the security breaches have already gone beyond stolen credit card numbers, and that potential targets can also include the electric power grid, trains, or even the stock market.

In mid-July 2010, security experts discovered a malicious software program called Stuxnet that had penetrated factory computers and had spread to plants around the world. It is considered "the first attack on critical industrial infrastructure that sits at the foundation of modern economies," notes The New York Times.

Stuxnet was extremely effective in delaying Iran's nuclear program for the development of nuclear weaponry & came at a high cost. For the first time, it became clear that not only could cyber weapons be defensive but they could also be offensive. Large decentralization and scale of cyberspace makes it extremely difficult to direct from a policy-perspective. Non-state actors can play as great a part in the cyber war-space as state actors, which leads to dangerous & sometimes disastrous consequences. Small groups of highly skilled malware developers are able to effectively impact global politics and cyber warfare as large governmental agencies. A major side of this ability lies in the inclination of these groups to share their exploits and developments on the web as a form of arms propagation. This allows lesser hackers to become more skillful in creating the large scale attacks that once only a small handful were skillful enough to manage. In addition, booming black markets for these kinds of cyber weapons are buying and selling these cyber capabilities to the highest bidder without any regard for consequences.

Denial-of-Service attack

In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Doers of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways or even root name servers. DoS attacks often influence internet-connected devices with vulnerable security measures to carry out these large-scale attacks. DoS attacks may not be restricted to computer-based methods, as strategic physical attacks against infrastructure can be just as devastating. For example, cutting undersea communication cables may severely cripple some regions and countries with respects to their information warfare ability.

Electrical Power Grid Attacks

The federal government of United States admits that the electric power grid is vulnerable to cyber-warfare. The United States Department of Homeland Security works with industries to identify vulnerabilities and to help industries improve the security of control system networks. The federal government is also working to ensure that security is built in as the next generation of "smart grid" networks are developed. In April 2009, reports appeared that China and Russia had infiltrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has issued a public notice that warns that the electrical grid is not sufficiently protected from cyber-attacks. China denies intruding into the U.S. electrical grid. One countermeasure would be to disconnect the power grid from the Internet. Massive power outages caused by a cyber-attack could disrupt the economy, distract from a synchronized military attack, or create a national trauma.

For example, Iranian hackers, possibly Iranian Cyber Army pushed a massive power outage for 12 hours in 44 of 81 provinces of Turkey, impacting 40 million people.

Howard Schmidt, former Cyber-Security Coordinator of the US, commented on those possibilities. “It's possible that hackers have gotten into administrative computer systems of utility companies, but those are not linked to the equipment controlling the grid, at least not in developed countries”. [Schmidt] has never heard that the grid itself has been hacked.

In June 2019, Russia said that its electrical grid has been under cyber-attack by the United States. The New York Times reported that American hackers from the United States Cyber Command planted malware potentially capable of disrupting the Russian electrical grid.

Propaganda

Cyber propaganda is an effort to control information in whatever form it takes, and influence the public opinion. It is a form of psychological warfare, except it uses social media, fake news websites and other digital means. In 2018, Sir Nicholas Carter, Chief of the General Staff of the British Army stated that this kind of attack from actors such as Russia "is a form of system warfare that seeks to de-legitimize the political and social system on which our military strength is based on".

Jowell and O'Donnell (2006) states that "propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate thoughts, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist". The internet is the most important means of communication today. People can carry their messages quickly across to a huge audience, and this can open a window for evil. Terrorist organizations can exploit this and may use this medium to brainwash people. It has been suggested that restricted media coverage of terrorist attacks would in turn decrease the number of terrorist attacks that occur later.

Economic Disruption

The WannaCry and Petya (NotPetya) cyber-attacksin 2007s, masquerading as ransom ware caused large-scale disruptions in Ukraine as well as to the U.K.'s National Health Service, the pharmaceutical giant Merck, Maersk shipping company and other organizations around the world. These attacks are also branded as cybercrimes, specifically as financial crime because they negatively affect a company or a group.

Surprise Cyber Attack

The idea of a "cyber Pearl Harbor" has been debated by scholars, drawing a similarity to the historical act of war. Others have used "cyber 9/11" to draw attention to the nontraditional, asymmetric, and irregular side of cyber-action against a state.

Motivational

There are a number of reasons nations undertake offensive cyber operations. Sandro Gaycken, a cyber-security expert and adviser to NATO, advocates that states take cyber warfare seriously as they are viewed as an attractive activity by many nations, in times of war and peace. Offensive cyber operations offer a large variety of cheap and risk-free options to weaken other countries and strengthen their own positions. As a long-term consideration geostrategic perspective, cyber offensive operations can cripple whole economies, change political views, agitate conflicts within or among states, reduce their military efficiency and equalize the capacities of high-tech nations to that of low-tech nations, and use access to their critical infrastructures to even blackmail them.

Military

With the rise of cyber as a substantial threat to national and global security, cyber war and cyber-attacks has also became a domain of interest and purpose for the Military.

In the U.S., General Keith B. Alexander, first head of USCYBERCOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that computer network warfare is evolving so rapidly that there is a "mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies. Cyber Command is the newest global combatant and its sole mission is cyberspace, outside the traditional battlefields of land, sea, air and space." It will attempt to find and, when necessary, neutralize cyber-attacks and to defend military computer networks.

One cyber warfare scenario, Cyber-Shockwave, which was war gamed on the cabinet level by former administration officials, raised issues ranging from the National Guard to the power grid to the limits of statutory authority.

The distributed nature of internet based attacks means that it is difficult to determine motivation and attacking party, meaning that it is unclear when a specific act should be considered an act of war.

Examples of cyber warfare driven by political motivations can be found worldwide. In 2008, Russia began a cyber-attack on the Georgian government website, which was carried out along with Georgian military operations in South Ossetia. In 2008, Chinese "nationalist hackers" attacked CNN as it reported on Chinese repression on Tibet. Hackers from Armenia and Azerbaijan have actively participated in cyber warfare as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with Azerbaijani hackers targeting Armenian websites and posting Ilham Aliyev's statements.

Jobs in cyber warfare have become increasingly popular in the military. All four branches of the United States military actively recruit for cyber warfare positions

As the military have become more and more entangled into the national and global threat proposed by the utilization of the cyber domain, a new research field within the Military Science field have slowly arisen. Its focus is centered towards describing, understanding and explaining what Military Cyber Operations is, can do and be tackled. In the Handbook of Military Sciences Aaron Brantly and Max Smeets define Military Cyber Operations to be "those cyber operations which a military entity of a nation-state plans and conducts to achieve strategic, operational, or tactical gain. “More so, they argue these types of military operations are commonly divided into three types of operations.

• Defensive Cyber Operations: Encompassing "those actions taken through the use of computer networks to protect, monitor, analyze, detect, and respond to unauthorized activity within a government’s information systems and computer networks".
• Cyber Espionage Operations: Encompassing "those actions taken through the use of computer networks to gather data from target or adversary information systems or network"."
• Offensive Cyber Operations: Encompassing "those actions taken through the use of computer networks to disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information resident in computers and computer networks, or the computers and networks themselves, or in basic, operations designed to achieve tangible effects".

Civil

Potential targets in internet sabotage include all sides of the Internet from the backbones of the web, to the internet service providers, to all the varying types of data communication mediums and network equipment. This would include: web servers, enterprise information systems, client server systems, communication links, network equipment, and the desktops and laptops in businesses and homes. Electrical grids, financial networks, and telecommunication systems are also considered vulnerable, particularly due to current trends in computerization and automation.

Hacktivism

Politically motivated hacktivism involves the subversive use of computers and computer networks to promote an agenda, and can potentially extend to attacks, theft and virtual sabotage that could be seen as cyber warfare – or mistaken for it. Hacktivists use their knowledge and software tools to gain unauthorized access to computer systems they pursue to manipulate or damage not for material gain or to cause extensive destruction, but to draw attention to their cause through well-publicized disruptions of select targets. Anonymous and other hacktivist groups are often portrayed in the media as cyber-terrorists, wreaking havoc by hacking websites, posting sensitive information about their victims, and threatening further attacks if their demands are not met. However, hacktivism is more than that. Actors are politically motivated to change the world, through the use of fundamentalism. Groups like Anonymous, though, have divided opinion with their methods.

Income generation

Cyber-attacks, including ransom ware, can be used to generate income. States can use these techniques to generate significant sources of income, which can evade sanctions and perhaps while concurrently harming rivals. This tactic was witnessed in August 2019 when it was revealed North Korea had generated $2 billion to fund its weapons program, avoiding the blanket of sanctions levied by the United States, United Nations and the European Union

Private sector

Computer hacking represents a modern threat in current global conflicts and industrial espionage and as such is presumed to widely occur. It is usual that this type of crime is underreported to the extent they are known. According to McAfee's George Kurtz, corporations around the world face millions of cyber-attacks a day. "Most of these attacks don't gain any media attention or lead to strong political statements by victims. This type of crimes are usually financially motivated.

Non-Profit Research

But not all those who engage in cyber warfare do so for financial or ideological reasons. There are institutes and companies like the University of Cincinnati or the Kaspersky Security Lab which engage in cyber warfare so as to better understand the field through actions like the researching and publishing of new security threats.

Significant Cyber Warfare Attacks of the Past:

These are politically motivated destructive attacks aimed at sabotage and espionage.

• 2007 cyber-attacks on Estonia, wide-ranging attack targeting government and commercial institutions
• 2010 cyber-attacks on Burma, related to the 2010 Myanmar general election
• 2010 Japan–South Korea cyber warfare
• 2013 Singapore cyber-attacks, attack by Anonymous "in response to web censorship regulations in the country, specifically on news outlets"
• #OpIsrael, a broad "anti-Israel" attack
• Cyber-attacks during the Russo-Georgian War
• July 2009 cyber-attacks, against South Korea and the United States
• Operation Olympic Games, against Iranian nuclear facilities, allegedly conducted by the United States
• Democratic National Committee cyber-attacks, against the Democratic National Committee by the Russian-sponsored cyber-espionage groups Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, possibly to assist Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Government espionage

These attacks relate to stealing information from/about government organizations:

• 2008 cyber-attack on United States, cyber espionage targeting U.S. military computers
• Cyber-attack during the Paris G20 Summit, targeting G20-related documents including financial information
• GhostNet
• Moonlight Maze
• Operation Newscaster, cyber espionage covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran
• Operation Cleaver, cyber warfare covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran
• Shadow Network, attacks on India by China
• Titan Rain, targeting defense contractors in the United States
• Google – in 2009, the Chinese hackers breached Google's corporate servers gained access to a database containing classified information about suspected spies, agents, and terrorists under surveillance by the US government.
• Gauss Trojan, discovered in 2012 is a state-sponsored computer espionage operation that uses state-of-the-art software to extract a wealth of sensitive data from thousands of machines located mostly in the Middle East.
• Office of Personnel Management data breach—Dec 2014 breach of data on U.S. government employees. The attack originated in China.
• A six-month-long cyber-attack on the German parliament for which the Sofacy Group is suspected took place in December 2014.
• Vestige is also suspected to be behind a spear phishing attack in August 2016 on members of the Bundestag and multiple political parties such as Linken-faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht, Junge Union and the CDU of Saarland. Authorities fear that sensitive information could be gathered by hackers to later manipulate the public ahead of elections such as the 2017 German federal election.
• Between July 7, 2021, to July 14, 2021, the Indian government email infrastructure was compromised thrice with hackers accessing emails of several top officials including that of Ajay Prakash Sawhney, the secretary to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS IN CYBER WARFARE & COUNTERMEASURES

What’s The Next Step for Cyber Warfare?

Presently, all cyber-attacks are planned and coordinated by live people. In the future, it’s expected that they’ll be devised and carried out by Artificial Intelligence. AI systems will be able to analyze and break into secure systems faster than any living human, and could cause disruption on a considerably wider scale than previously possible.

Block chain is going to be one of the best ways to defend against cyber-attacks. It can protect data from intruders, and keep systems secure.

It’s likely that cyber-attacks will become more common over the coming years, and we will see a full-scale cyber warfare level event probably in the next decade.

Preparedness

A number of countries conduct implementation to increase preparedness and explore the strategy, tactics and operations involved in conducting and defending against cyber-attacks against nations, this is normally done in the form of war games. The Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCDCE), part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have conducted a yearly war game called Locked Shields since 2010 designed to test readiness and improve skills, strategy tactics and operational decision making of participating national organizations. The war game involved a fictional country, Berylia, which was "experiencing a weakening security situation, where a number of hostile events coincide with coordinated cyber-attacks against a major civilian internet service provider and maritime surveillance system. The attacks caused severe disruptions in the power generation and distribution, 4G communication systems, maritime surveillance, water purification plant and other critical infrastructure components". CCDCE describe the aim of the exercise was to "maintain the operation of various systems under intense pressure, the strategic part addresses the capability to understand the impact of decisions made at the strategic and policy level." Ultimately, France was the winner of Locked Shields 2019.

The European Union conducts cyber war game scenarios with member states and partner nations to improve their readiness, skills and observe how strategic and tactical decisions may affect the scenario.

As well as war games which serve a broader purpose to explore options and improve skills, cyber war games are targeted at preparing for specific threats. In 2018 the Sunday Times reported the UK government was conducting cyber war games which could "blackout Moscow". These types of war games move beyond defensive preparedness, as previously described above and onto preparing offensive capabilities which can be used as deterrence, or for "war".

Cyber Counter-intelligence

Cyber Counter-intelligence are measures to identify, penetrate, or neutralize foreign operations that use cyber means as the primary tradecraft methodology, as well as foreign intelligence service collection efforts that use traditional methods to gauge cyber capabilities and intentions.

• On 7 April 2009, The Pentagon announced they spent more than $100 million in the last six months responding to and repairing damage from cyber-attacks and other computer network problems.
• On 1 April 2009, U.S. lawmakers pushed for the appointment of a White House cyber security "czar" to dramatically escalate U.S. defenses against cyber-attacks, crafting suggestions that would empower the government to set and enforce security standards for private industry for the first time.
• On 9 February 2009, the White House announced that it will conduct a review of the nation's cyber security to ensure that the Federal government of the United States cyber security initiatives are appropriately integrated, resourced and coordinated with the United States Congress and the private sector.
• In the wake of the 2007 cyber war waged against Estonia, NATO established the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCD CoE) in Tallinn, Estonia, in order to enhance the organization's cyber defense capability. The center was formally established on 14 May 2008, and it received full accreditation by NATO and attained the status of International Military Organization on 28 October 2008. Since Estonia has led international efforts to fight cybercrime, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation says it will permanently base a computer crime expert in Estonia in 2009 to help fight international threats against computer systems.
• In 2015, the Department of Defense released an updated cyber strategy memorandum detailing the present and future tactics deployed in the service of defense against cyber warfare. In this memorandum, three cyber missions are laid out. The first cyber mission seeks to arm and maintain existing capabilities in the area of cyberspace, the second cyber mission focuses on prevention of cyber warfare, and the third cyber mission includes strategies for retaliation and preemption (as distinguished from prevention).

One of the hardest problems in cyber counterintelligence is the problem of attribution. Unlike conventional warfare, figuring out who is behind an attack can be very difficult.

Legal Perspective

Various parties have attempted to come up with international legal frameworks to clarify what is and is not acceptable, but none have been widely accepted yet.

The Tallinn Manual, published in 2013, is an academic, non-binding study on how international law, in particular the jus ad bellum and international humanitarian law, apply to cyber conflicts and cyber warfare. It was written at the invitation of the Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence by an international group of approximately twenty experts between 2009 and 2012

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (members of which include China and Russia) defines cyber war to include dissemination of information "harmful to the spiritual, moral and cultural spheres of other states". In September 2011, these countries proposed to the UN Secretary General a document called "International code of conduct for information security".

In contrast, the united approach focuses on physical and economic damage and injury, putting political concerns under freedom of speech. This difference of opinion has led to reluctance in the West to pursue global cyber arms control agreements. However, American General Keith B. Alexander did endorse talks with Russia over a proposal to limit military attacks in cyberspace. In June 2013, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin agreed to install a secure Cyber war-Hotline providing "a direct secure voice communications line between the US cyber security coordinator and the Russian deputy secretary of the security council, should there be a need to directly manage a crisis situation arising from an ICT security incident" (White House quote).

A Ukrainian professor of International Law, Alexander Merezhko, has developed a project called the International Convention on Prohibition of Cyber war in Internet. According to this project, cyber war is defined as the use of Internet and related technological means by one state against the political, economic, technological and information sovereignty and independence of another state. Professor Merezhko's project suggests that the Internet ought to remain free from warfare tactics and be treated as an international landmark. He states that the Internet (cyberspace) is a "common heritage of mankind".

On the February 2017 RSA Conference Microsoft president Brad Smith suggested global rules – a "Digital Geneva Convention" – for cyber-attacks that "ban the nation-state hacking of all the civilian aspects of our economic and political infrastructures". He also stated that an independent organization could investigate and publicly disclose evidence that attributes nation-state attacks to specific countries. Furthermore, he said that the technology sector should collectively and neutrally work together to protect Internet users and pledge to remain neutral in conflict and not aid governments in offensive activity and to adopt a coordinated disclosure process for software and hardware vulnerabilities. A fact-binding body has also been proposed to regulate cyber operations.

 CONCLUSION

State sponsored attacks are a highly rewarding and relatively low cost & low risk way to carry out espionage and military operations. The possibility of being able to point attacks back to a particular country with sufficient accuracy is extremely low and the success rate on any concentrated effort is almost entirely guaranteed.

Given this, nations that have pioneered the practice of cyber operations have enormously increased their capabilities. Whereas any countries that have sat on the side-lines for years, observing the success of such operations, are now diving in headfirst to get their Cyber Attackers to do their own warfare successfully, efficiently, stealthily & more importantly with a low budget.

While many countries are focusing on cyber warfare it is important to focus on countermeasures too. Otherwise that country can become a victim of a cyber-attack too which will result in the collapse of economy, national security, independence, etc.

 REFERENCES

1. What are State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks “https://blog.f-secure.com/what-are-state-sponsored-cyberattacks/”
2. Melgarejo’s full explanation of state-sponsored cyber-attacks https://youtu.be/U5yilHrroCE
3. F-secure.com – State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks “https://www.f-secure.com/en/consulting/our-thinking/state-sponsored-cyber-attacks”
4. Cyber Warfare – Wikipedia “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare”
5. List of Cyber Attacks – Wikipedia “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cyberattacks”
6. What Is The Future of Cyber Warfare? – Blog https://blog.v-hr.com › blog
7. Significant Cyber Incidents.pdf  “https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/210901_Significant_Cyber_Incidents.pdf?iZAairy6vNXrSEp9cFC_TCaB0IxnkE3D”

Stay Informed, Stay Safe!