Cyber Security (2)

Cyber Security (2)

1. Infowar, Cyberwar, and 'Netwar'

   • Critically, the emergence of societies defined by significant degrees of networked connectivity marks a decisive shift to a genuinely comprehensive warfare
     • This is delineated not merely by ‘routine’ cyber insurgency but potential ‘catastrophic’ systemic disablement depending upon the degree of societal interconnectivity
   • Infowar is societal to an unprecedented degree, blurring existing distinctions between military and civilian, public and private and reinforcing theoretical shifts emphasising societal security and acknowledging a more complex threat environment that makes conventional military means more problematic
   • Cyberwar ‘refers to conducting, and preparing to conduct, military operations according to information-related principles …[and]… turning the “balance of information and knowledge” in one’s favour
   • 'Netwar’ is broader in scope and refers to ‘information-related conflict at a grand level between nations or societies. It means trying to disrupt, damage, or modify what a target population knows or thinks about itself and the world around it.’ (Arquilla and Rondfedt, 1997: 146-147)

2. Current Societal Developments and Concerns

   • 1) Mobile malware has seen major growth since 2014 – targets android devices rather than PCs
     • Ransomware encrypts data and holds it for ransom – often applied to email accounts and associated with telephone scams
     • Attacks targeting ‘near field communications features’ found on many devices may corrupt valid apps to steal data without detection
   • 2) Virtual currencies will fuel attacks
   • 3) Enhanced stealth attacks will incorporate evasion techniques to avoid detection. Self-deleting malware will conduct ‘hit and run’ attacks
   • 4) Social attacks will rise with Facebook, Twitter and Google particularly vulnerable
     • ‘False flag’ attacks will trick users (phishing +) and their machines into revealing authentication credentials
     • Increasing password vulnerabilities eg Pony Botnet stole 2 million passwords from Facebook, Google and Yahoo
   • 5) Attacks on Cloud-based data will increase in sophistication and frequency as almost all data is accumulating in Cloud

3. The Silk Road

   • Closed down by CIA in 2013, this re-surfaced in 3rd incarnation last year - cryptomarket facilitated trade in illicit drugs across the dark web – used TOR (the onion router) network encryption technology that hid the IP address of user
   • Cryptomarket is “online forum where goods and services are exchanged between parties who use digital encryption to conceal their identities” (Martin, 2014)
   • Linked to Libertarian philosophy advocating freedom of choice for consumers with access to better quality drugs because it operated in a free market
   • Sustained a ‘feedback’ system for users – a ‘forum’ community offering social freedom for vendors and consumers – safer than person-to-person street trading
   • Anonymity ensured that ‘trust’ was a principal requirement – violence reduced, harm reduced, price reduced, quality and efficiency enhanced, security assured
   • Strong rejection of capricious control of state governance or authoritarian law in favour of the evolution of agreed norms and values between users – a social and societally differentiated space
   • Cornerstone of drug market and cybercrime replicable for weapons, human and other trafficking reliant on operation of darknet networks and therefore a level of IT sophistication among users
   • ‘War on Drugs’ encourages SR; Libertarianism validates its ‘freedoms’; OC heightens perceptions of its ‘security’ of use

4. Recent Issues

   • The ‘attack’ on Tesco bank customers
     • Described as a ‘sophisticated’ attack as if this excuses ineffective and out-of-date banking security
     • Affected 20,000 victims of theft – costs of reimbursement, compensation, brand confidence/loyalty
     • Attributed to a state-sponsored (Russian) attack – Why? What and where is the evidence?
     • Attributed to organised crime network based in Brazil and Spain
   • Fake document trade
     • UK passports, driving licences, utility bills and education certificates traded on dark web for as little as £800 – the ‘Agora’ marketplace
     • Extended to doctored photos, forged payslips – the same sites offer drugs (cocaine, metamphetamine) and weapons (AK47s, Glock pistols)
     • Useful to terrorist groups
     • 30,000 illegal products found in 3 hours worth £26 million
     • US most prolific nation of buyers and sellers
     • 90% of trade dominated by OC oligarchy
     • Rise of the ‘dumb phone’
   • Domestic Technology - Smart Homes ('The Internet of Things'

5. Artificial Intelligence: Prospects and Limitations

   • Concept of a coming singularity – the creation of super-intelligent, conscious machines that might outsmart and dispense with humans
   • There are a number of problems with current approaches that are surfacing in research thinking
   • Information may not actually exist
     • It is not an entity in the universe and only makes sense in the context of a conscious observer. For this reason alone the so-called singularity is a long way off
     • If there were no minds there would be no information
     • ‘Information’ is just shorthand for how we interact with ‘reality’ but is not reality itself

6. Machine Reasoning and Human Consciousness

   • We still read and learn at the speed Aristotle did but machine reasoning is fast and getting faster
   • Already the concept of a ‘global brain’ has emerged and its algorithmic decisions seem appealingly ‘objective’
     • For humans this takes away our control and promotes acquiescence; It enfeebles our abilities to shape our environments
     • It is a form of ‘techno-rule’ that may prove dystopian for many with the danger not that it will fail but that it will succeed
   • To date, humans are still ‘driving’ this process – but not for much longer and not because machines have become ‘intelligent'
   • As always, it is about the balance of order and justice – how we ensure the greatest benefit for the greatest number of humans