Cyber-espionage and Cyber-war!

Cyber-espionage and cyber-war are hot forms of crime and conflict in the 21st century.  Here are resources to help you understand and prepare.

(1)  Posts by Marcus Ranum about cyber-espionage and cyberwar

1. Obama knows how to lead America by exploiting our fears,  5 June 2009 — About cyberwar
2. Cyberwar: a Whole New Quagmire.  Part 1: The Pentagon Cyberstrategy, 2 September 2011
3. “Do as I say, not as I do” shall be the whole of the law, 11 September 2011
4. Conflating Threats, 14 September 2011
5. About Stuxnet‏, the next generation of warfare?, 29 September 2011 – Introducing Stuxnet and some of the issues surrounding practical malware-based warfare.
6. Cyberwar: a Whole New Quagmire – When the Drones Come To Roost, 8 October 2011
7. About Attribution (identifying your attacker), 21 October 2011
8. You must Be >this< Tall To Play Cyberwar (has DoD grown enough yet?), 16 December 2011
9. Parsing Cyberwar – Part 1: The Battlefield, 9 August 2012
10. Parsing Cyberwar – Part 2: The Logistical Train, 10 August 2012
11. Parsing Cyberwar – Part 3:Synergies and Interference, 13 August 2012
12. Parsing Cyberwar – Part 4: The Best Defense is a Good Defense, 20 August 2012
13. Cyberwar, the Power of Nightmares, 31 August 2012

(2) Useful sources of information about cybercrime, cyber-espionage, and cyberwar

• Journal of Law & Cyber Warfare

(3)  For More Information

1. “Cyberwar is Coming!”, John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Comparative Strategy, Spring 1993 — republished by RAND report (pdf)
2. “War Logs On: Girding America for Computer Combat“, Bruce D. Berkowitz (RAND, coauthor of Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age), Foreign Affairs, May/June 2000 — “In Kosovo, America stumbled into the age of computer warfare. Now Washington must think hard about how to attack its foes’ electronic networks and defend its own.”
3. “Assessing the Risks of Cyber Terrorism, Cyber War and Other Cyber Threats“, James A. Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 2002
4. “The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Statistics in Information Security Research“, Julie J.C.H. Ryan, George Washington University, 2003 — Slide presentation here.
5. “Unsecured Economies, and Overly-secured Reports“, Jackie Rees and Karthik Kannan, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), Purdue U, 30 January 2009
6. “Securing the Information Highway – How to Enhance the United States’ Electronic Defenses“, Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2009
7. Defending a New Domain – The Pentagon’s Cyberstrategy“, William J. Lynn III, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2010
8. “Science of Cyber-Security“, JASON Defense Advisory Panel, November 2010 — This examines the theory and practice of cyber-security, and evaluates whether there are underlying fundamental principles that would make it possible to adopt a more scientific approach.
9. “The Online Threat. Should we be worried about a cyber war?“, Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 1 November 2010
10. “Underground Economies – Intellectual Capital and Sensitive Corporate Data Now the Latest Cybercrime Currency“, McAfee and SAIC, 2011
11. “Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risk”, Peter Sommer (London School of Economics) and Ian Brown (Oxford), OECD, 14 January 2011
12. “Sex, Lies and Cybercrime Surveys“, Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley, Microsoft Research, June 2011
13. “The Wrong War: The Insistence on Applying Cold War Metaphors to Cybersecurity Is Misplaced and Counterproductive“, Peter W. Singer and Noah Shachtman, Brookings Institute, 15 August 2011 — Both authors are with the 21st Century Defense Initiative.
14. “The Calm Before the Storm“, Joel Brenner, Foreign Policy, 6 September 2011 — “Cyberwar is already happening — and it’s about to get much, much worse. A veteran cyberwarrior explains how America can prepare itself.”
15. “Cyber War: Reality or Hype?“, Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus, 11 January 2012
16. “Cyber-Weapons”, Thomas Rid (Kings College) and Peter McBurney, The RUSI Journal, February 2012
17. “Cyber War Will Not Take Place“, Thomas Rid (Kings College), Journal of Strategic Studies, February 2012
18. “Think Again: Cyberwar“, Thomas Rid (Kings College), Foreign Policy, March/April 2012 — “Don’t fear the digital bogeyman. Virtual conflict is still more hype than reality.”
19. “Does Cybercrime Really Cost $1 Trillion?“, by Peter Maass and Megha Rajagopalan, ProPublica, 1 August 2012