Effects of Cyberattacks on International Peace

¶ … Cyberattacks to Achieve International Threats Cyberattacks have become a global phenomenon leading to international conflicts among individuals, organizations and in conjunction to military operations. Target of cyberattacks include banking services, critical organizational infrastructures, government networks, and media outlets. Implication of such attacks may be an attempt to achieve both financial and political objectives. Typically, some attackers have defaced websites of different organizations, damage corporate infrastructures, and shut down network systems.

Many cyberattacks are political motivated, and sources of these attacks are difficult to trace because most of the attacks are often state sponsored. Cyberspace attackers employ different tactics to achieve their objectives, which include both financial and military gains. Objective of this paper is to explore the cyber operations and some of the tools that cyber attackers use to achieve their operations.

Objectives of Cyberattacks and Tools used to achieve the Objectives Cyberattacks are broadly described as the type of criminal activities where computer systems and computer networks are the targets of criminal activities. The U.S. Department of Justice defines the cyberattacks as the type of crime target at computer systems without the authorization in order to carry a theft and attack the system integrity, data integrity, availability and data confidentiality. (Stallings, 2011). Major objectives of carrying out the cyberattacks are to achieve both financial and strategic gains.

Different tools are used for cyberattacks. Malware or malicious software is one of the tools that cyber criminals use to perpetuate their attacks. Malware is a program that attackers use to exploit the vulnerabilities of the computer systems. "Nearly two-thirds of critical infrastructure companies report regularly finding malware designed to sabotage their systems." (Maude, 2011 p 17). Examples of non-independent malware include logic bombs, Viruses, and backdoors. However, independent malware includes Bot programs and Worms. A logic bomb is one of the predatory viruses, program threat, and worms.

The logic bomb refers as the code embedded in a legitimate program, which explodes when certain condition is met. When a user downloads the application embedded with the logic bomb, it will trigger the logic bomb, which in turn may delete or alter the entire file. For example, Tim Lloyd, an employee of Omega Engineering used the logic bomb on his company's infrastructure that cost the company over $10 million, derailed the corporate strategic growth and consequently led to a layoff of 80 workers.

"Ultimately, Lloyd was sentenced to 41 months in prison and ordered to pay $2 million in restitution." (Stallings, 2011, p 787-788). Cyber criminals also use the backdoor to enter a legitimate website to commit fraud. A backdoor is a program that creates as secret entry point to gain access into the organizational infrastructures. Typically, the backdoor has become a threat using an unscrupulous program to gain access to network infrastructure to carry out unauthorized or illegal activities.

DoS (Denial of Service) is another tool of cyber attackers where attackers flood the networks, and servers with flood of traffic thereby make an organizational computer system inaccessible. The goal of DoS is to debar legitimate users from gaining access to the information resources. Botnets is a type of computer referred as zombie army where the computer has been programed to forward transmission that contains viruses or spam. Using this tactics, cyber attackers can install Trojan horse, virus or worm into organizational network systems thereby steal sensitive information.

An attacker can use Botnets to forward an attachment that contains a Trojan horse to gain access to organizational sensitive information. Reply to Thread is one the tools that cyber attackers use to gain access to cyber infrastructure. For example, an attacker can send email thread that contains attachment and virus to an unsuspected employee, and if the employee downloads the attachment, the virus may spread to the overall corporate computer systems thereby alter or delete files.

Automated defense system is an effective tool that organizations and governments can employ to defend organization network infrastructures. IDS (intrusion detection system), Firewall, and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) are the effective automated defense systems to defend computer system. The IDS is used to detect an unauthorized access to the network systems, while the IPS is used to prevent unauthorized access to the network system. Moreover, the firewall prevents unauthorized network activity into the corporate network system. (Maude, 2011).

Government and Military Network In the United States, the military and network systems are increasingly under cyber-attacks.

Although, many cyberattacks are financially motivated where attackers invade corporate network infrastructures to steal sensitive information such as credit card information to sell them for financial gains, however, some cyberattacks are politically motivated where some state actors such as Russia, China, and some Eastern countries sponsor cyberattacks to steal sensitive and military intelligent information to achieve strategic military and business advantages against western countries such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and France. In recent years, China and Russia cyber espionages continue to increase making the U.S.

national, technological, and military securities to be at risks because the U.S. innovative ideas are increasingly stolen through cyber-attacks. A rapid increase of technological development makes cyberattacks to increase 20 folds against the U.S. infrastructures between 2009 and 2011. It is likely that cyber threat will become number one threat to the United States critical infrastructures in the future. Actors and Attribution Maude, (2011) argues that cyber criminals are exploiting the internet to target the United States in variety of ways.

Since increasingly number of governments are moving their operations online, cyber criminalities against governments continue to grow. Maude, (2011) points out that the UK receives more than 20,000 malicious emails on the government network system monthly. Moreover, some states sponsor cyber-criminal activities with the goals of spying and compromised the government activities. For example, many states with smaller military operations are sponsoring cyber-attacks against the United States as a way to thwart the U.S. military superiority. Moreover, some terrorists are using the cyberspace to spread propaganda and hatred.