Internet And Cyber Security
“Securing a computer system has traditionally been a battle of wits: the penetrator tries to find the holes, and the designer tries to close them. ”~Gosser Warfare has always been a game of cat and mouse. As technology increases war has to adapt with it. Wars have evolved from a contest of strength to a show of potential. Previously wars were fought with large armies and whomever could most effectively utilize the most troops with better training won; now however, a single person with a nuclear bomb can destroy a city within seconds.
In the 1980s, a new technology appeared: the internet. At first the internet was just a way for people to communicate by sending text files to each other. Soon however the internet became a public place to store and access information. As more and more personal and classified information gets stored, it is only natural that people try to find a way to steal information for their own benefits. Cyber skirmishes are right now being fought online to get more information.
Bruce Berkowitz said: “The ability to collect, communicate, process, and protect information is the most important factor defining military power. ” Berkowitz argues that weaponry and manpower that used to be the main determining factor of wars will lose out to the amount of information that a country has. Knowing where the enemies have grouped their troops/weapons will allow a guided missiles and unmanned drones to wreak havoc. Cheap cyber weapons such as worms and trojans (viruses) can neutralize conventional 2 eapons as missiles and nukes1. According to the Department of Homeland Security: “Our daily life, economic vitality, and national security depend on a stable, safe, and resilient cyberspace. We rely on this vast array of networks to communicate and travel, power our homes, run our economy, and provide government services. Yet cyber intrusions and attacks have increased dramatically over the last decade, exposing sensitive personal and business information, disrupting critical operations, and imposing high costs on the economy. 2 Unlike any other technological advancement, information technology has changed how wars are fought. Before information technology wars were always about killing enemy combatants, now skirmishes are about the speed of maneuvering packets of information. There is no longer a “front” in war; rather it is all about little battles between counterinvasion and invasion. While previously a command center would be untargetable unless you bypass the enemy armies, now each “battle” online is consisted of its own security system. What we are seeing are threats against critical infrastructure,” said Cyber security expert Jessica HerreraFlanigan of the Monument Policy Group . “So, we are talking about threats against our energy sector, the banking sector, telecommunications, smart grids, oil and gas basically, all the critical assets that we have that operate our daytoday living are being impacted. ” Like traditional war, cyberwar has two basic types of attacks: disruption and espionage. 1 ttps://www. cia. gov/library/centerforthestudyofintelligence/csipublications/csistudies/studies/vol48no4/ new_face_of_war. html 2 http://www. dhs. gov/cybersecurityoverview 3 Disruption attacks can be compared to traditional battles between two armies. Attacks of this type is designed to halt a specific site or server. Espionage attacks are generally attacks for classified information. Common attacks include denial of service attack, viruses, worms and trojans.
Countries such as China and India are rapidly outpacing the United States in the field of information technology. Should the United States not be able to keep up with China and India in information technology, these countries will be able to steal information on the United States infrastructure and military secrets. What is Computer Security Cybersecurity is used to describe a set of hardware, software and coding designed to protect a nation/company’s networks, computers, programs and data from any type of unauthorized access.
There are different types of of cyber security: Application security is specific to different applications (programs) and deals with the measures that the program takes while it is running to prevent errors and handle exceptions when there is a flaw (an example of this can be the Windows Blue Screen of Death). Information security is when a company/nation tries to defend information or trade/military secrets from unauthorized access (an example of this is when Gmail is encrypting its passwords). Disaster recovery is the process in which a program tries to recover data aft
