Information Disturbance, Degradation, and Denial

Defending against information disturbance, degradation, and denial requires the use of many of the countermeasures already mentioned. Any of the weapons for mounting these types of attack require access to enemy communication channels, so information protection mechanisms and redundant channels can be effective in maintaining some lines of communication that are not affected by would-be attackers. Our collection of legacy systems provides a certain amount of inherent robustness and resiliency. They point to overlaps and duplications in these systems and argue that it would be very hard for anyone to completely disrupt a given set of services.

There are also several techniques available that are specifically designed to counteract the weapons described for performing disturbance, degradation, and denial attacks. Communicators move toward frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum, and code-division multiple access (CDMA) technologies, which are difficult to jam and intercept. These techniques, and the thousands of others currently under development at research sites all over the world, make it easier every day to recover from attempts to mangle and block information as it travels to its intended destination.

CONCLUSIONS

From this discussion, it is easy to see that information warfare is no less complex than traditional warfare. It involves many different strategies, techniques, weapons, and defenses. Many would argue that the subset of topics presented here as information warfare leave out important threats to national security, and I might be inclined to agree. I would also argue, however, that what is here is enough to keep our military busy for a very long time. I propose that we take this set of more well understood aspects of information warfare and work on getting real plans in place for how to deal with the threats they pose. As those at the top of the ladder in information warfare come to understand more about the newer information related threats, we can add them to the list of "information warfare" techniques and begin to define weapons and countermeasures for them. Until then, we must use the information we have to prepare ourselves to be combatants in the information war that is already raging.

(based on: Megan Burns, 1999

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~burnsm/InfoWarfare.html)

GLOSSARY

Information Warfare – a concept involving the use and management of information and communication technologies in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent.

Cybersecurity (computer security or IT security) – is the protection of information systems from theft or damage to hardware, software and information they contain, as well as from disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.

GPS(the Global Positioning System) – is a space-based navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstucted line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.

Martin C. Libicki - is an American scholar and Professor of Frederick S.Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge Massachesetts. He went on to receive a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning as well as a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has participated in Track II diplomacy with regards to negotiations between the USA and China on cybersecurity.

triple-digital encryption standard (DES) - is a type of computerized cryptography where block cipher algorithms are applied three times to each data block. The key size is increased in Triple DES to ensure additional security through encryption capabilities.

public/private key encryption (PKE) – refers to a method of encryption which includes a pair of digital codes for each person: one is called the public key and is disseminated widely, and the other is called the private key and is known only to the intended recipient.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 905