Information warfare and cyber security - Research Paper Example

Referred to as the information warfare, it poses a high security risk to any country’s critical infrastructural base, and is thus of great concern to the various governments as they are forced to create new measures to protect the national assets. Information warfare in the 21st century has become more diverse in nature, with various changes in its design taking place owing to innovativeness in technology and greater informational access. This diverse nature has also expanded the scope for application of information warfare mechanisms into critical non-military arenas, like the commercial environment.

The introduction of information through the use of internet and computers within the military arena has given rise to various force multipliers like Network Centric Warfare, Information Operations, and the C4I2SR Systems, and this age of information warfare and cyber terrorism often referred to as Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), has not only changed the way modern wars are fought, but have also opened a new perspective in the domination of a new arena, the cyber space. This paper will take an in-depth look into the sphere of information warfare.

Information warfare and cyber security 1 Introduction “One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful.” Sun Tzu (Sixth Century B.C). 1.1 Background information on Information warfare The various technological innovations and scientific discoveries that have occurred in the last two or three decades have been in the general benefit of mankind, yet these same scientific advancements have been put to negative use by some, for causing wide scale damages to the society at large.

This threat has taken a more distinct form since the arrival of Internet during the 1990s, where not all internet users have used the virtual realms for beneficial or peaceful activities. Information warfare is one such instance where certain criminals have put computers (internet) and the information obtained through it, for various nefarious activities. Information warfare is a form of terrorism used effectively to weaken entities, and is an emerging threat for all nations’ worldwide and global commerce, with the potential to effectively breakdown the critical infrastructural framework of any country, and is an example of what Sun Tzu had predicted in the 6th century BC, about “seizing the enemy without fighting.

” In the recent times both instances of attack and degree of threat have reached such large proportions that cyber war is now considered at par with land, air, or sea wars, with a persistently increasing potentiality to cause grave damages to the security of any nation, as were evinced in the attacks on Georgia and Estonia (Beidleman, 2009). This is particularly dangerous in many of the developed nations where the critical infrastructure and processes like commercial activities and utilities, banking sector, and mode of communications completely operate through the computers and the cyberspace.

Even more than a decade after the Internet came into being, there are no universally recognized uniform codes of laws or an authorized body to govern the cyberspace,