cyber security

“Cyber warfare [may be used] to disable a country’s infrastructure, meddle with the integrity of another country’s internal military data, try to confuse its financial transactions or to accomplish any number of other possibly crippling aims,”

One of the most notorious cyber warfare offensives to date took place in Estonia in 2007 when more than a million computers were used to jam government, business and media websites. The attacks, widely believed to have originated in Russia, coincided with a period of heightened bilateral political tension. They inflicted damage estimated in tens of millions of euros.

China last week accused the Obama administration of waging “online warfare” against Iran by recruiting a “hacker brigade” and manipulating social media such as Twitter and YouTube to stir up anti-government agitation.

The U.S. Department of Defence’s quadrennial defence review, published this week, also highlighted the threat posed by cyber warfare on space-based surveillance and communications systems.