

When will the US realize the battlefield isn't physical anymore? - haekuh
http://haekuh.kinja.com/when-will-the-us-realize-the-battlefield-isnt-physical-510220266

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EliRivers
The battlefield is physical. It always will be. It only appears not to be
because that side of things is remarkably well covered.

The day that a nation decides to not bother with the physical battlefield is
the day they get slaughtered by a rabble with flintlocks, metaphorically (or
perhaps literally). Being king of the cyber world will do you no good at all
if you can't stop the other guy simply walking in and shooting you.

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chasb
The first link is to a DOD report. What part of..well, anything, suggests the
US isn't taking cyber seriously?

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ckozlowski
That a unified (sub)-combatant-level command has been newly created for this
very task speaks volumes.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command>

The author's frustration is justified, but his conclusion that they do not
take it seriously is misplaced. In my opinion, the U.S. (and specifically, DoD
in this case) suffers from two things:

1\. Defense is hard. Once a vulnerability in a system has been found, defense
is reactive. It is currently very hard to protect against a determined
attacker.

2\. DoD is a large ship, and while they have identified the need for an
intense focus in this area; building the skillset and practices to make this
work effectively in such a large institution is hard.

To summarize, the author is right to be frustrated but the examples he lists
come from a lack of effectiveness, not a lack of focus.

It is worth putting into context that the defenses of other nations (and
private entities) are not much better, and often worse. Offence is much, much
more powerful than defense in the world of InfoSec currently. This is an issue
that all nations are dealing with. I am reminded of a line I read on a popular
security research's blog shortly after the Mandant report came out:

"The #1 APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) actor in the world today is...the
United States."

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jstandard
I think the US gov't tales cyber security very seriously. They're just getting
hammered by everyone since they're the most prominent target. This reminds me
of why MS Windows seems so "full of viruses". I don't think it's because MS
doesn't take security seriously. It's that there's so much more to be gained
by attacking Windows PCs than any other OS and so many more potential targets,
making it easier for large vulnerabilities to make headlines.

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Shorel
What?

Don't everybody know about Economic Hitmans? And all the secret stuff the CIA
does?

If any, the US is the country most aware of any complimentary battlefields.

In fact, I guess most successful cyber attacks by the Chinese were done only
because of US-Gov mandated backdoors in commercial software.

They will learn their lessons fast.

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cup
Actually I think the us government is more than aware of this fact. I remember
sitting in at a private security function for the UAE government in 2007 when
this issue was raised. That fact however is that this shift in battle dynamic
only applies to nation states primarily. As it stands, there is no economic
point in nation states fighting each other. For those countries that are
engaged against the us however asymmetrical guerrilla tactics are far more
rationale,.economical and accessible than cyberattacks. resistance fighters
get a greater ROI from suicide bombings than they would from expensive.cyber
attacks that rely On equipment which can be difficult to source or even
utilise in third world countries. .

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burkeen
War has changed.

