Submitted by Evan Jaksha
The earliest wars were fought face to face with swords and arrows. Later, gunpowder pushed battles and the enemy farther away with less face to face confrontations. Still later, the invention of planes, bombs and missiles pushed the battle even farther away where one may never see the enemy. Today, many battles are fought without a sword, a gun or a missile but rather the push of a computer button.
As wars continued, war making inventions have kept pace with better guns, planes and missiles, always in an effort to out-perform the enemy. As the weapons of war got more complicated so did the delivery systems incorporating complicated computers and programs. Every time a new weapon or delivery system is invented, there is another opportunity for the enemy to defeat that weapon system that may win the battle for them. A great deal of today’s weapons’ systems rely, directly or indirectly, on computers and their programming. Now, these new weapon computers and programs have opened a cyber warfare “Achilles heel” for an enemy to exploit.
Many of the new, modern, complicated airplane designs require a computer to fly them relying less on the pilot, such as our Stealth F117, B2 bomber and F22 Raptor. Many of these airplanes use detection retardant materials to foil an enemy’s radars while also using radical designs to change their profiles to minimize the airplane’s radar detection profile. Naturally, anything that can get an airplane deeper into an enemy’s territory can be a battle game-changer. The problem is that such design changes often require a computer to “fly” these new radical designs with a pilot over-seeing its performance. Remove or interfere with the on-board computer and the airplane and its mission will fail.
Today’s acquisition and targeting systems are nothing like they were in recent wars. These early systems in WWII were once the pride of an army such as the German V-1 and V-2 rockets using simple guidance systems of a simple gyroscope, airspeed sensor with an altimeter bringing their rocket to altitude and velocity where its engine would stop to fall upon its target. Such systems were the foundation of weapons today.
Now, computer guidance systems have three major sub-sections: Inputs, Processing, and Outputs. Collectively they provide sensors, radio and satellite links for course data, communicating with on-board CPUs for proper heading data, which is then processed to control engine speed, which is finally articulated with the ailerons, rudders, or other thrusting devices for target acquisition.
War computerization is not limited to these larger systems, but may also soon find itself helping the single land-warrior soldier. Computerized nano-technology is currently being researched for placement onto a soldier and their weapons so they can “see” the enemy before the enemy sees them. Already in battlefields, computerized, hand-held drones flying ahead of a battlefield relay valuable intelligence to fight a better battle. The ability to use computer systems that can make faster, and often better, decisions than the warrior, now allows for another battlefront, a Cyber Warfare battlefront. An enemy with no face.
Just as a gun, a plane or missile has opportunities to be stopped by the enemy using armor to repel a bullet, camouflage to hide from an incoming airplane, or deflecting radar to throw a missile off, computers with their programs of 0’s and 1’s provide a huge opportunity to fight a new cyber war before a battle field is bloodied. First world armies are well aware of cyber warfare, knowing that a vast majority of their infrastructure is managed by computerization supporting their front-line warriors and their weapons. Stop this direct or indirect computerization and an opposing army can potentially stop an altercation, a battle, a war, before it can even occur. Ultimately saving lives and material needed elsewhere.
An excellent cyber warfare example recently in the news was the 2010 Stuxnet virus used against the Iranian nuclear bomb-making program. This computer virus was specifically designed to worm its way into the Iranian centrifuge programmable logic controllers. Their centrifuges were potentially being used to separate nuclear material that could be used for nuclear warheads. This cyber-virus caused the centrifuges to break apart putting the Iranian nuclear material production capabilities years behind, thereby avoiding confrontations and allowing time to consider other alternatives.
Another newsworthy example was during the 1999 Kosovo War where a NATO jet had bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. It was speculated that the Yugoslav Army was being provided communications assistance from this site so efforts were made to stop that. In quick retaliation, the Chinese launched thousands of cyber-attacks against many NATO country government websites.
Imagine the ability to use such technology quickly on a battlefield, rendering a soldier’s computerized weapons useless, stopping planes from flying or forcing missiles to sputter into the ground before they could reach their targets. It would be a warfare bonanza to the country with such cyber-technology. Imagine using a laser to transmit cyber inscriptions to an enemy’s weaponized computers without ever having to cross into their country or their battle-lines. Again, an enormous advantage.
As with many war inventions, like gunpowder, the airplane, the missile and many others, they soon found themselves in civilian use. Examples of those are GPS in our cars, freeze drying found in our groceries, the EpiPen that saves lives originally made for battlefield casualties, Duct tape found in our garages and the very computers we use in home and work via our laptops or cell phones; these are all products of war.
The latest news, as reported on CNN, discusses how the Shadow Brokers hacked into the US Government’s National Security Agency measures with global banking systems. Now, Cyber attacks are crossing battlelines, back and forth, from governmental entities (NSA) and civilian businesses (banks) with ease. Cyber warfare and cyber criminal activity is becoming a blurred line with governments attempting “one upmanship” over perceived enemies that is also allowing criminal elements to destroy financial and personal privacy.
Here’s the interesting connection. Just as the civilian world has benefitted from military war inventions, the civilian world is now suffering from its own cyber warfare problem that the military community is suffering from. The same cyber warfare the enemy would like to engage in is now occurring in civilian systems. Hacking was often considered a very juvenile prank by savvy teenagers garnering laughter, but now it has morphed into a very serious criminal endeavor.
Civilian cyber warfare technology is finding its way into our civilian lives with criminal cyber-hackers worming their way into our private lives of security numbers, codes and accounts and selling them to world-wide criminals who can empty a bank account with the press of a computer keyboard 10,000 miles away and again, never was an a act of physical violence performed.
We hear in the news, with almost monthly occurrence, about civilian cyber-hackers breaking into the computerized systems of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others, as well as Yahoo and Google, where huge financial damage can be created. The US government’s Office of Personnel Management was cyber-attacked of over 20 million individual Social Security numbers, health histories and other highly sensitive data that can used for criminal purposes. The damage from such cyber-intrusions is often not felt for years as cyber-criminals use this information for nefarious motives. US News & World Report recently reported (2014) that hackers cost more than $445 billion annually. As reported in the Huffington Post in 2013, hackers cost the US economy almost 500,000 jobs annually. Hacking viewed as a juvenile prank is something of the past. Today, it is a major crime with enormous costs.
Yet it appears that the juvenile prankster still thinks this is all in “fun.” As recently as April 2017, a hacker in the Dallas, TX area made the emergency weather sirens sound off. This may sound like a funny teenage prank but if this caused a traffic issue with an injury or death, then this cyber-intrusion takes on a completely different perspective. Consider the potential for a catastrophe that would occur if future driver-less cars, or maybe pilot-less commercial airlines, were cyber-breached for criminal purposes. Certainly, even if you have not thought about it, future criminals have.
So is there a solution to this cyber-problem? A complete solution appears far off, but I see an opportunity to fight back. Imagine this scenario where a “friendly” computer has an adjunct program that helps detect a “criminal” computer intrusion. Recognizing this, the “friendly” computer already has a pre-set faux-program that sends the “criminal” intruder into. Now, the “criminal” computer thinks it is actually in the “friendly” computer so it can perform its criminal activities.
This scenario allows the “friendly” computer to be in charge, allowing three scenarios to occur; 1) It allows the “criminal” computer to do its damage in this faux-computer site because it thinks it is “in”, 2) It allows for electronic cyber-tracking and tagging for future prosecution and 3) The “friendly” computer can also be using this faux-computer site to install computer breaking “viruses” back into the “criminal” computer thereby debilitating the criminal computer.
Whether it is a military cyber warfare situation or a civilian cyber technology breach, cyber warfare can affect everyone and everything in our modern world. If we are to make an effort to fight back, to win these military and civilian cyber wars, society must address the need to educate and train computer warrior-engineers with the capability to fight future cyber wars. To passively wait will potentially bring us all back to our knees fighting an enemy with simple weapons of rocks and sharpened sticks while our bank accounts are emptied. Are we ready?
Evan Jaksha
Junior, Cathedral Catholic High School
College degree direction: Computer Engineering
Evan’s father is stationed at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado. Evan has attended several Navy ceremonies with his father, and while at one recently here in town, his father suggested that Coronado’s mix of civilian and military residents may find Evan’s article on Cyber Warfare interesting.
