Perspectives for Cyber Strategists on Law for Cyberwar

The proliferation of martial rhetoric in connection with the release of thousands of pages of sensitive government documents by the WikiLeaks organization underlines how easily words that have legal meanings can be indiscriminately applied to cyber events in ways that can confuse decision makers and strategists alike. The WikiLeaks phenomenon is but the latest in a series of recent cyber-related incidents––ranging from cyber crises in Estonia and Georgia to reports of the Stuxnet cyberworm allegedly infecting Iranian computers––that have contributed to a growing perception that “cyberwar” is inevitable, if not already underway. All of this generates a range of legal questions, with popular wisdom being that the law is inadequate or lacking entirely. Lt Gen Keith B. Alexander, the first commander of US Cyber Command, told Congress at his April 2010 confirmation hearings that there was a “mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies.” Likewise, Jeffrey Addicott, a highly respected cyber-law authority, asserts that “international laws associated with the use of force are woefully inadequate in terms of addressing the threat of cyberwarfare.” This article takes a somewhat different tact concerning the ability of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to address cyber issues. Specifically, it argues that while there is certainly room for improvement in some areas, the basic tenets of LOAC are sufficient to address the most important issues of cyberwar. Among other things, this article contends that very often the real difficulty with respect to the law and cyberwar is not any lack of “law,” per se, but rather in the complexities that arise in determining the necessary facts which must be applied to the law to render legal judgments

Between Hype and Understatement: Reassessing Cyber Risks as a Security Strategy

Most of the actions that fall under the trilogy of cyber crime, terrorism,and war exploit pre-existing weaknesses in the underlying technology.Because these vulnerabilities that exist in the network are not themselvesillegal, they tend to be overlooked in the debate on cyber security. A UKreport on the cost of cyber crime illustrates this approach. Its authors chose to exclude from their analysis the costs in anticipation of cyber crime, such as insurance costs and the costs of purchasing anti-virus software on the basis that "these are likely to be factored into normal day-to-day expenditures for the Government, businesses, and individuals. This article contends if these costs had been quantified and integrated into the cost of cyber crime, then the analysis would have revealed that what matters is not so much cyber crime, but the fertile terrain of vulnerabilities that unleash a range of possibilities to whomever wishes to exploit them. By downplaying the vulnerabilities, the threats represented by cyber war, cyber terrorism, and cyber crime are conversely inflated. Therefore, reassessing risk as a strategy for security in cyberspace must include acknowledgment of understated vulnerabilities, as well as a better distributed knowledge about the nature and character of the overhyped threats of cyber crime, cyber terrorism, and cyber war

Warfighting for cyber deterrence: a strategic and moral imperative

Theories of cyber deterrence are developing rapidly. However, the literature is missing an important ingredient—warfighting for deterrence. This controversial idea, most commonly associated with nuclear strategy during the later stages of the Cold War, affords a number of advantages. It provides enhanced credibility for deterrence, offers means to deal with deterrence failure (including intrawar deterrence and damage limitation), improves compliance with the requirements of just war and ultimately ensures that strategy continues to function in the post-deterrence environment. This paper assesses whether a warfighting for deterrence approach is suitable for the cyber domain. In doing so, it challenges the notion that warfighting concepts are unsuitable for operations in cyberspace. To do this, the work constructs a conceptual framework that is then applied to cyber deterrence. It is found that all of the advantages of taking a warfighting stance apply to cyber operations. The paper concludes by constructing a warfighting model for cyber deterrence. This model includes passive and active defences and cross-domain offensive capabilities. The central message of the paper is that a theory of victory (strategy) must guide the development of cyber deterrence

Defense Support to the Private Sector: New Concepts for the DoD\u27s National Cyber Defense Mission

A primary mission of the Department of Defense (DoD) remains defending the nation in cyberspace, a function which has until this point has been oriented around the traditional Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) framework. However, conceptual confusion as to the most effective mechanisms for DoD support during national cyber emergencies has generated a perpetual “fog” that restricts the frameworks optimal employment. This paper examines the typical forms of DoD cyber support currently employed, and presents four additional pillars for consideration. These proposed pillars highlight the potential value of the DoD’s defined role and functionality as a supporting command to the private sector during national cyber emergencies. Furthermore, this paper recommends new, adaptable structures and defined roles that can serve as a model for the DoD’s future composition, disposition, and employment in cyberspace when called upon to defend the nation. Because the private sector is on the front lines of the conflict, a new model of Defense Support to the Private Sector (DSPS) needs consideration

The nature of international law cyber norms

The special expanded issue of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence's Tallinn Papers examines the nature, formation and evolution of international legal norms governing cyber activities. The inquiry’s foundational premise is that the rules of international law governing cyber activities are identical to those applicable to other types of conduct. Any differences in their explication and application are the product of the unique nature of cyber activities, not a variation in the legal strictures that shape their content and usage. It conducts the examination by genre of legal norm: treaty, customary law and general principles

Cyberspace and Time: A Light through the Fog?

International audienceOne usually describes cyberspace as a virtual realm. In truth, it is grounded in real infrastruc-tures, which therefore inherit local regulations and broader geopolitical influences from the location where they are set up. The consequences of this attachment to a place can be measured to some extent from the communications happening in cyberspace, i.e., through communication networks. But there is also a temporal anchorage resulting from phenomena such as synchronisation in communications which, when analysed, reveals deep and surprising proximities, shedding new light on the relationships between actors in cyberspace. We discuss in particular how an analysis of synchronicity in cyberspace helped to identify collusions and a diffusion network active in spreading radical messages, as well as providing insight in these groups' internal structure.Le cyberespace constitue un domaine généralement décrit comme virtuel. Mais il est bâti en réalité sur des infrastructures tout à fait existantes, qui sont dès lors sujettes aux législations territoriales, et aux influences géopolitiques héritées des lieux où elles sont installées. Cet ancrage terrestre laisse des traces, mesurables, dans les échanges qui se tiennent dans le cyberespace, via les réseaux de télécommunication. Mais il y a également un ancrage dans le temps, réalisé par exemple par la synchronicité des échanges, et qui révèle des proximi-tés d'une autre nature, éclairant les relations entre acteurs du cyberespace selon un angle nouveau. En particulier, nous illustrons comment une étude du temps dans le cyberespace a permis d'identifier des collusions à large échelle dans la diffusion de messages à contenu radical, et la structure des groupes de diffusion

Designing for the dichotomy of immersion in location based games

The interaction design of mixed reality location based games typically focuses upon the digital content of the mobile screen, as this is characteristically the primary navigational tool players use to traverse the game space. This emphasis on the digital over the physical means the opportunity for player immersion in mixed reality games is often limited to the single (digital) dimension. This research seeks to redress this imbalance, which is caused, in part, by the requirement for the player?s attention to be systematically switched between the two worlds, defined in this research as the ?Dichotomy of Immersion?. Using different design strategies we propose minimising the reliance of the player upon the mobile screen by encouraging greater observation of their physical surroundings. Using a ?research through design? approach for the mixed reality game PAC-LAN: Zombie Apocalypse, we illustrate design strategies for increasing immersion in location based games, which we believe will aid designers in enabling players to more readily engage with the physical context of the game and thus facilitate richer game experiences

Deterring Malicious Behavior in Cyberspace

Recent incidents reveal cyberattacks are being employed and honed in a systematic, coordinated fashion to achieve the objectives of malicious actors. Deterrence of the wide array of actors in cyberspace is difficult, since deterrence has to work in the mind of the attacker. Each attacker will weigh the effort of the attack against the expected benefit under their own criteria or rationality. This article analyzes whether the contemporary and complementary deterrence strategies of retaliation, denial, and entanglement are sufficient to deter malicious cyber actors or if the alternative of active cyberdefense is necessary and viable

Aquinas’ Malware : How old theologies can shape the ethical use of new weapons

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Exploring Fog of War Concepts in Wargame Scenarios

This thesis explores fog of war concepts through three submitted journal articles. The Department of Defense and U.S. Air Force are attempting to analyze war scenarios to aid the decision-making process; fog modeling improves realism in these wargame scenarios. The first article Navigating an Enemy Contested Area with a Parallel Search Algorithm [1] investigates a parallel algorithm\u27s speedup, compared to the sequential implementation, with varying map configurations in a tile-based wargame. The parallel speedup tends to exceed 50 but in certain situations. The sequential algorithm outperforms it depending on the configuration of enemy location and amount on the map. The second article Modeling Fog of War Effects in AFSIM [2] introduces the FAT for the AFSIM to introduce and manipulate fog in wargame scenarios. FAT integrates into AFSIM version 2.7.0 and scenario results verify the tool\u27s fog effects for positioning error, hits, and probability affect the success rate. The third article Applying Fog Analysis Tool to AFSIM Multi-Domain CLASS scenarios [3] furthers the verification of FAT to introduce fog across all war fighting domains using a set of CLASS scenarios. The success rate trends with fog impact for each domain scenario support FAT\u27s effectiveness in disrupting the decision-making process for multi-domain operations. The three articles demonstrate fog can affect search, tasking, and decision-making processes for various types of wargame scenarios. The capabilities introduced in this thesis support wargame analysts to improve decision-making in AFSIM military scenarios