Cyber Warfare

Definition

Cyber Warfare:- It is the use of

computers and the internet in
conducting warfare in
cyberspace(wikipedia).
It is also referred as a massively coordinated digital assault on a
government on another, or by large
group of citizens.

Real World vs Cyberspace

Conventional
Warfare
Medium:- Air,
Land , Water

CyberWarfare
Medium:Cyberspace(i.e
internet or other
networks)

Weapons:
Weapons:- Virus,
Missile and
But both have Worms,
a common Soft
Bombs. effect :Bombs.
Impede or Destroy the
LPI/LPD:
Enemy!!
LPI/LPD:Stealth(Physical)

Why fight in cyberspace?

Most of the developed countries in

the world have their military,
economical, social, political etc.
backbone in cyberspace.
Tampering or desroying this
backbone would mean serious
disruptions or heavy losses in real
world.
Internet has a great amplyfying

More reasons for cyber

warfare

Vulnerabilities of internet.

High return on investements.

Inadequacy of cyber defences.

Plausible deniability.

Vulnerabilities of internet

Internet is highly vulnerable as

hackers can read, delete, modify
information on or data traveling
between computers due to its
imperfect design.
Even simple common vulnerabilities
are difficult to supress as database
grows daily and its very difficult to
guard all the holes to the
network(maybe ports or nodes or

High returns on Investement

Investement may include research

and develop data, sensitive and
loopholed communication system.
And hacking or sabotaging systems
is very inexpensive and involves very
less risks.
This is the prime elegance of the
cyber warfare.

Inadequacy of Cyber
Defences

Cyber defence is an immature

descipline.

The traditional skills are inadequate

and new professional skills are
highly marketable.
Investigations are slowed by the
international nature of the internet.

-Many Cultural, Linguistic, political

barriers

Plausible Denaibility

The ability to deny a attack is a very

sweet feature of cyber warfare.
Maze like architecture of internet
cause investigators to find just an
hacked box.
Smart hackers can easily rout attacks
where there is poor diplomatic
relations or where there is poor law
enforcement relations.

Cyber Warfare Tactics

Espionage

Propaganda

Data modification

Denial of Service attack(DOS)

Espionage

Cyber Espionage or Cyber Spying is

the act of obtaining secrets without
the permission of the holder of the
information from governments and
enemies for economic, political or
military advantage using illegal
exploitation methods on the internet.
Basically its used for retriving data!!

Propoganda

Propoganda may involve hacking websites

and defacing it and may also use digital
graffiti.
Defacing is done to:To publicly strike a blow against a
perceived enemy.
To embarrass a targeted site by illustrating
a security issue.
To reduce public confidence in the security

Data Modification

Data modification is extremely

dangerous as a computer or human
may take important descisions on
maliciously tampered data.
Modification of entire website is
possible and electronic graffiti can
carry propoganda or disinformation.

Denial of Service(DOS)

Denial of service refers to deny the

computer resources legitimate users.
Most common tactic includes
flooding the target with bogus data
so it cannot respond to real requests
for services/info.
Eg. Attack on Estonia

Estonia Cyber Attack

From April 2007 a series of cyber

attacks on Estonia swamped
websites of estonian organizations,
including Estonian parliment banks
ministreies newspapers and
broadcasters amid the countrys
disapprovement with Russia.
These websites were hit by massive
DDOS(distributed DOS) attacks which
paralyzed their cyberspace.

A classic weapon of cyber

warfare: Viruses

Presumptive weapon of cyber war:

"viruses" (actually a range of
malware such as computer viruses,
network worms, trojan horses, root
kits, spyware, etc.) are use and
greatly absued in cyber warfare.

These viruses spread rapidly through

computer networks and can be
programmed to perform cyber
warfare tactics like Espionage,

Conclusion

Cyber Warfare is a new and

immature descipline, but few people
posses great knowledge in this
descipline .
Only thing that can protect you from
a cyber attack is knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!