Skip to footer

Cyberwar: Who's been attacked? Who are attackers?

The US is often a target of cyberattacks, but its government is also known to be an attacker. The Pentagon's Plan X, moreover, will bolster US capabilities to wage cyberwar.

|
Jim Urquhart/Reuters/File
In this September 2011 file photo, an analyst works at a Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity defense lab, which is part of the Idaho National Laboratory. The US government is currently working to enhance its cyberattack capabilities.

The United States is a major target of cybercrime and cyber-attacks, but it has plenty of company. Attacks are known to have occurred within the past year in nations as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Britain, India, Lebanon, Syria, and, of course, Iran, according to media accounts. The actual list is probably much longer.

And in the case of Iran, the US is known to be a perpetrator. The New York Times last year revealed that President Obama approved a cybersabotage program called Operation Olympic Games, which included accelerating the Stuxnet cyberweapon attack on Iran's nuclear fuel facilities, slowing progress on a program that the West suspects is destined to produce a nuclear weapon.

Since the Stuxnet worm came to light, it has become clear that other cyberintrusions directed at Iran are under way.

Moreover, the US is pioneering the development of offensive cyber-weapons, with the Pentagon announcing in October that it is launching Plan X in a bid to build the cyberwarfare capabilities "needed to dominate the cyber battlespace." The very existence of Plan X signifies that cyberwar capabilities are now part of the US military playbook and that the Pentagon will issue contracts to develop cyber-weapons just as it does to build fighter jets or submarines.

All of this is occurring with little oversight from Congress and almost no public debate, critics charge. Some liken the US action to the owner of a glass house being foolishly determined to throw stones. Others insist that the era of cyberwarfare has already dawned and that it is incumbent upon US officials to ensure that the country not only is protected from cyberattack, but also has the ability to strike if needed.

"Certainly we have thought Stuxnet was very likely to be a US-Israel operation – and that assumption has now turned out to be the case," Stewart Baker, a lawyer and former senior official at the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, told the Monitor in June. "In some ways, I do feel as though we've been living in a glass house for years, and now we've decided we're going to invent rocks."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Cyberwar: Who's been attacked? Who are attackers?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0109/Cyberwar-Who-s-been-attacked-Who-are-attackers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe