According to the Russian Kommersant newspaper, the Russian Ministry of Defense has announced tenders for research in the field of computer security. The newspaper’s sources noted that other countries’ military departments were conducting similar studies, and Russia should keep pace with them.
Meanwhile, not long ago the US announced tenders for developing programs able to assess the degree of protection against computer attacks of the suspected opponent’s military infrastructure. The program will be at the disposal of Pentagon and the US intelligence services. At the same time, the US Air Force turned to creating programs capable of destroying computer schemes of the enemy’s command posts. So, are the much spoken and written about cyberspace wars becoming a reality? Expert Andrey Grosin has shared his opinion with the Voice of Russia. “Cyber wars are much spoken about throughout the world, but at the same time, they are treated as something that has no connection with reality. Drones were treated the same way ten-fifteen years ago. And today, drones’ military operations have become almost a daily reality, at least, for residents of many regions.” In the spring of 2011, the US government launched practical implementation of the idea of creating military cyber headquarters, first suggested under George Bush’s administration. About that time, a global concept of cyberspace development was published in the US. It became clear that the United States considered processes in cyberspace for their own practical interests. And the matter was not confined to repelling someone's threats. But achieving dominance in cyberspace and if it was considered sufficient, attacking from there, was at issue as well. War with the use of cyberspace appears cheaper, than an ordinary one. It is possible to attack economic or military objects at any time. Meanwhile, victims of the attack usually have hard time trying to determine, where the blow was delivered from. And it looks like no coincidence that attacks on various objects on the territories of Middle Eastern countries have intensified right now. This region has long become a testing area for practicing various Western military conceptions. The only difference is that nowadays testing of new types of weapons is kept secret. At the same time, it is known that weapons tests are usually conducted under conditions similar to those that the weapons are planned to be used. And if someone has begun working out in this region, then, probably, the work will be continued. But isn’t Andrey Grosin’s conclusion an exaggeration? Here's our observer Eugeny Yermolayev’s answer to this question. “This May, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that cyber-attacks were a means of fighting against terrorism. She was referring to the American hacker attacks on the “al-Qaeda on the South of the Arabian Peninsula” website. Hillary Clinton became the first senior American official, who admitted the fact of the United States waging war in cyberspace. But the war is fought not only against terrorists, but against certain countries. Recently, two world-known computer security companies – “Kaspersky Lab” and “Symantec” - independently came to the conclusion that Iran had become the object of an undeclared cyber war that was waged by structures enjoying the support of not yet unmasked governments. And it is not excluded that new strange computer malfunctions are not far off. In any case, one should be ready for everything.” In other words, we are witnessing the beginning of a new stage of arms race, this time computer one. And everyone possessing sufficient resources will take part in this race. Mankind is clearly not ready to create collective security systems and international agreements in this sphere. Source: Voice of Russia
