Cyberattacks Continue -- New Implications

Recent news reveals that North Korea has been the source of the recent wave of cyberattacks against the West. While the specific target was South Korea, US Government web sites were also attacked including viruses and outages extended further than their brethren in the southern part four Federal departments which experienced periodic outages this week: the Secret Service, the Treasury Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and Transportation. Curiously, the Defense Department was not attacked.

US Government networks have been the target of attacks every day for years, mostly from China and Russia. What's new about this latest wave of attacks is their origin and their relentlessness over a three-day period. The web sites mentioned earlier were down periodically over the July 4th weekend and outages continued into this week. And while the attacks appear to have minor technological effects, they have major implications for long-term policy, economics and military training.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, acknowledged the attacks and said that "we are responding." No doubt with hacking techniques that will make the North Koreans regret their actions.

Still, this latest round only points to the continued need for, and priority, of national defense centered around cybersecurity. The problems are deeper and more complex than traditional defense. For example, should the DOD protect private networks (e.g., those of IBM and General Motors) in addition to Government networks? Would this protection jeopardize civil liberties?

I will discuss this in future posts.