The start of every US war in the ME has featured attacks on communication and infrastructure, starting with hacking in to the telephone exchanges weeks or months before the hot war starts, and culminating with the takedown of critical physical infrastructure, like power, water, etc. as the first thing to go when the shooting starts.
Can you clarify this? I remember seeing some articles about this tactic in maybe 2010, but nothing before then. I recall the Gulf War and OIF/OEF infrastructure damage being primarily from aerial bombing, but it's possible I missed the articles about the hacking element.
I'm not doing the snarky "citations pls" thing; I don't dispute it happened. I just want to know more.
I can't find the article I read at the time. The gist of it was that a sysadmin was bribed to gain access to the telephone exchanges and once the Iraqi government realized they were compromised they ran expedient unburied fiber links to communicate with commanders.
It's an interesting arrangement. Launching a cyber war for its own sake might or might not escalate to a hot conflict, but a hot conflict would almost certainly be backed by the cyber version.
