Alexey Salnikov, Deputy Director of the Moscow State University, Institute of Informational Security, talks about a new threat for the world’s stability, which is cyber warfare.
By Yekaterina Kudashkina: The basic question to you would be – are we entering an era of cyber wars and cyber warfare? Yes, exactly so. You have raised a very important question which has already been discussed for several years in different frameworks by the international society. Exactly so, we are now facing a new threat, a new challenge for the world’s stability – it is the problem of using cyber capabilities as a warfare, as a tool for achievement of political and military purposes. Nowadays our everyday life, the life as an activity of the states became more and more dependent on the cyber tools, dependent on the Internet. And so all the damages became more and more dangerous for all of us and for the states as well. Also lately we have seen several examples of using some tools as military tools – it is a well-known Stuxnet example – which has already been used in Iran. And also there are several opinions that it was developed by Israel and the United States’ Special Forces. It is an example which we can see. But the new domain – the cyber space – has a lot of principally new features in comparison with the ordinary battlefield. It is a new domain and a lot of tools can be used in such a way that you even don’t know that it is used against you. For example it can be used for espionage and if it is very well designed you even won’t know that you are under an attack. It is one point of view. The other point of view is that in the cyber space you cannot trace for sure who is using these tools against you in aggressive purposes. And it also can be used for saying that you are an enemy and you mustn’t use these tools. For example when Russia was accused of using weapons against Estonian websites. So, it is a very complicated field. In one way it became more and more dangerous and from the other it is a new battlefield for the diplomats. And there are a lot of unsolved problems yet. That’s why the Russian Federation tries to raise these questions in the framework of the UN discussions because Russian Federation believes that theis issue is very important for the world’s stability and security. So, do I get you right that you are telling me that the situation with the use of cyber warfare technologies makes the cyber space such a complicated mix of we-don’t-know-where-those-programs-are-coming-from? Yes, exactly so. Which means that the geographical borders between the potential enemies are definitely erased. There is no more issue of geographical borders, of something that is dividing those enemies. Is that correct? That’s absolutely correct. But using of the cyber weapons can be even more dangerous even in comparison with the ordinary nuclear weapons or genetic weapons. But if we are facing a new stage of arms race in the sphere of cyber space, we will have a lot of difficulties of how to regulate these issues, how to eliminate using of a cyber weapon because there are a lot of problems when we try to apply well-known laws, humanitarian rules which is used in the ordinary war, and we cannot apply them directly to using of a cyber warfare because cyber space is a completely new domain and is constituted of principally new features which are very difficult to put into the international regulations. You said that this kind of weapons are even more dangerous than genetic weapons or nuclear weapons. Why? Because we become more and more dependent in different spheres – transport, energy, health care, banking sphere – and the results of using a cyber weapon can have a much bigger scale in comparison with nuclear arms because nuclear arms can damage a large city and a cyber weapon can damage the entire banking sphere. It can bring to a collapse of payments and it will collapse the economy. So, the consequences can be more dangerous even in comparison with the use of nuclear arms. When I was talking to several experts some of them were telling me that definitely in cyber warfare there is a broader focus of attack, so to say. But on the other hand cyber warfare can reduce the number of casualties. Do you agree with that? Yes. You speak about the casualties of ordinary people. Yes. There is a question of whether a cyber weapon can kill people. Maybe it can. There is an example when cyber viruses stopped computers in a clinic in North America and it led to the death of a person who was on life-supporting equipment controlled by this computer. So, it is an example when a cyber weapon can even kill people. But the dangerous note in this is that a cyber weapon can lead to a damage of a huge scale. It can damage a nuclear plant, an energy plant, it can damage the system of traffic management and etc. So, it is a little bit different but it is also very dangerous. When we are talking about the cyber space, are we referring only to computer systems or for something like cellphones for instance? Yes, when we are speaking about the cyber domain, there are two different approaches to these issues. At the international level some states, mainly the United States, try to speak only about computers and computer networks. But there is an approach of China, Russia, and some other countries which say that mobile phones and other tools also became part of the cyber domain. From the Russian point of view cyber domain is not limited to the computer networks, it also includes mobile phones, wireless networks and all the electronic equipment which is used by people. Does that mean that all the armaments, all the weapons, all the arsenals accumulated on this earth are actually becoming obsolete, out-of-date? I don’t think so. I think that a cyber weapon is just a new type of weapon. Conventional weapons I think will be used for a hundred of years and nuclear weapons will be still a very important tool especially of political negotiations. Cyber weapon is just a new tool, a new dimension in which political confrontation can develop. So, I don’t think that conventional arms are eliminated where cyber weapons appear. But also cyber tools become part of conventional weapons. We can see that airplanes, tanks, battleships etc become more and more clever, I mean they use a lot of cyber tools. So, cyber tools can be used against these conventional weapons as well. It is interesting that you said that those conventional weapons are becoming more clever. But doesn’t that on the other hand render them more vulnerable? Yes, of course. For sure they become more vulnerable with the cyber tools. Exactly so! That’s why for example the US developed special programs which have the aim to defend their own military networks because the US Army is very dependent on the cyber space. Even soldiers on the battlefield have a lot of cyber tools as part of their equipment. It is very interesting! And my final question. Well, definitely it is a lay person’s question, but it would seem that developing cyber weapons is a less expensive job than the development of ordinary weapons. Is my hunch correct? Exactly so! You have mentioned another very important feature of a cyber weapon. Cyber weapon can be developed by just very poor people in India or in some other poor country. They just need a computer and their brains, nothing else. So, potentially it can be very cheap. But when you have developed a very clever cyber weapon, it can be also a very expensive one. For example there are some notes in the press that Stuxnet which was developed as we think by Israel and the US costed a huge amount of money. Source: Voice of Russia
