29 Oct 2007
Nato defence ministers met in the Netherlands last week to discuss issues of cyber defence.
The ministers discussed the effectiveness of Nato's own defences against cyber attacks as well as the possibility of being able to provide further protection for member states should they require it.
Finalised policies will be announced in 2008 at a Nato summit meeting of heads of state.
Nato developed cyber defence capabilities in 2000 after attacks originating from Balkan states.
The second phase of the programme is being given additional importance after cyber attacks on Estonia paralysed the country's government web sites and online banking systems.
Nato was unable to help Estonia defend itself against the attacks.
The UK and the Pentagon have also been reported to have suffered similar attacks this year.
Developing cyber weapons does not require the massive infrastructure usually associated with conventional arms. A couple of PCs and a couple of smart programmers and you have all you need to create a cyber weapon.
Advanced Data Weapons have unique capabilities that make their detection and elimination much more difficult than conventional viruses and trojans.
- Self morphing malicious code applications
- Electronic circuitry destruction capabilities
- Self encrypting / decrypting of malicious code
- External disruption capacity of wireless networks
- Exploitation of unreported vulnerabilities in common commmercial software
Working with Intelomics and Spy-Ops, two international cyber security companies, we were able to collect enough data to construct the high level cyber threat matrix featured above.
As with the conventional arms race, countries with significant defense spending have taken the lead in the cyber arms race. But that trend is rapidly changing. In the past few years malicious code with advanced features has been created for under $3,500 USD. We are beginning to see the emergence of cyber arms dealers. The cost of cyber weapons are in range of poor and developing countries.
Posted by: Kevin G. Coleman - Technolytics 29 Dec 2007
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