Attacks in a Pre-Cyber World
We have to remember that with the time, subversion practices and objectives of subversion between competing states have not changed but only methodologies have changed and has become more sophisticated in nature. What was physical than is cyber now. Cyber capabilities and super computing power have enabled the nations/state sponsored actors to exploit the system vulnerabilities and penetrate the critical infrastructure of the target country at a light speed. The pre cyber era was dominated by the cold war period. During the Cold War era, the practices for sabotaging critical infrastructure of the target country without attracting full scale war have been widely prevalent. According to the book, The Mitrokhin Archive, KGB had several hidden bases in the neighbouring countries bordering United States, for conducting sabotage in the United States. The book chronicles various key targets in Europe and US for causing sabotage in the event of war. New York was one such state with the largest number of targets. KGB had planned to disrupt the power supply of the entire state before taking refuge in the Appalachian mountain. Further in the event of war with NATO, Moscow had planned a massive campaign of sabotage and disruption behind enemy lines. Further the book throws light on how KGB organised series of dead drops concealing explosives in bars and restaurants in Europe, intended to used in the vent of war. During the cold war, subversion activities and conspiracies have been played by the major super power against each other. However, it ended, post disintegration of USSR.
Transition from Cold War to Digital Word
Discussions about standoff between the United States and Russia have focused a great deal of attention on the idea of “hybrid warfare,” or gray zone operations. The concept of hybrid warfare has been associated with Russia’ Military General, Mr Valery Gerasimov. In a 2013 article, General Gerasimov outlined the key elements of what has become known as the Gerasimov doctrine. General Gerasimov described a version of warfare tactics that transcends boundaries between peace- and wartime, which can be described as a hybrid warfare. During the cold war, the Soviet military had planned to fight enemy with conventional as well as nuclear forces. In the twenty first century, Gerasimov said, the line between war and peace would blur, and Russia should prepare for under -the- radar conflicts waged through propaganda, cyber-attacks, paramilitary operations, financial and energy manipulation, and covert subversion. The Gerasimov doctrine is, in other words, is a state of permanent conflict. Russian government interference in the U.S. presidential election is a validation of Gerasimov doctrine thought process, that conflict is permanent ant multidimensional, just below the threshold of war.
Nature of global cyber-attacks are diverse. It includes indiscriminate attacks, destructive attacks, cyberwarfare, Government espionage, Corporate espionage, credit card and financial data breach, medical data theft etc. Most of these attacks are often linked to cross border activities. Many state sponsored cyber groups and various non state actors are said to be behind sophisticated cyber-attacks. These group have been designated as an advanced persistent threat due to their notorious cyber history and level of sophistication in carrying out the cyber operations. China is the world’s second largest economy and a dominant nuclear weapon state, having the world’s second largest defence budget. Information warfare is an integral component of Chinese Cyber Warfare capabilities.
Governments are increasingly depending on the private corporates for services and technologies. Interconnection between every fibre of society, corporates, Government, Social Services are getting complex and digitally interconnected. Military organisations across the world are moving nuclear codes and military specific strategic and operational data to cloud platforms. Modern day Corporations are modernizing their data platforms like never before, to leverage new-age applications and advanced analytics. Nuclear plants, Airlines, Rails, Metro, Dams, Water treatment plants, Trade secrets, Government classified and secrets, elements influencing bi-lateral and multi-lateral relations, critical technology secrets, financial services data, data generated through IoT etc are housed in some or the other network. Our priority is to protect our system and network from exploits by our enemy.
We don’t have reasons to disbelieve that, with the ever-growing technological advancement and interconnected network, the future attacks will be more advanced than the contemporary actions. Many countries are continually improving their supercomputing powers with one of the objectives of breaking the fortified networks of enemy states with the super speed. India is vulnerable to advanced cyber threat. Major Indian establishment have been allegedly targeted in the past. It is the time we have to work on saving our infrastructure using strategic measure. This may include Sharing Threat Information , Modernizing Government Cybersecurity infrastructure, Enhancing Software Supply Chain Security, Establishing a Cyber Safety Review Board, Standardizing the Government’s Playbook for Responding to Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Incidents, Improving Detection of Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Incidents on Government Networks, Improving the Government’s Investigative and Remediation Capabilities, leveraging private sector capabilities and supporting/partnering with our corporates in developing advance technologies for safeguarding our infrastructure and providing deterrence to enemies action.