Whose hackers pose a threat to peace

Paralysis of control systems, large-scale blackout, chaos in control systems for air and ground transport, disruption of banks and stock exchanges, off the internet and mobile - so, according to the American apologists for the inevitability of inter-state conflicts in cyberspace looks like the script of kiberoruzhiya. A former leading expert on kiberzaschite in the most sensitive U.S. intelligence services - the National Security Agency - Charles Miller recently estimated that the preparation of an attack that can cause these effects, an aggressor country needs about two years. In this case, the costs of preparing an attack and the number of people involved in it are modest: $ 98 million and 592 people for an attack on the U.S. $ 112 million and 750 hackers to defeat the EU, $ 86 million and 517 kibervoinov for aggression against Russia.

The expert made these calculations based on the fact that the aggressor would be North Korea, but according to him, they are suitable for other countries preparing electronic attacks from scratch. To prepare an attack countries which already have kiberpodrazdeleniya, will take less time. Such paramilitary structures already have U.S., UK, China, India, Israel and other countries.

Most active here are Americans. In October, the full force earned kiberkomandovanie USA (US Cyber Command), headed by Gen. Keith Alexander. Structure, which became part of the National Security Agency, brings together all the pre-existing cyber units the Pentagon. Now kiberkome employs about 1 thousand people, but the military has announced the launch of an ambitious program of recruiting specialists of the appropriate profile. Some of them will ensure the safety of not only military and governmental infrastructure, but also the most important commercial facilities of the country. On the eve launched in early February, the program "Kibervyzov for the United States," under which it is planned to find 10 thousand young computer geniuses, announced the head of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Thomas Carper.

And this year the U.S. is planning to adopt a new doctrine of cybersecurity. Its orientation can be judged by a September program article deputy Pentagon chief William Lynn III with a symbolic name of "Protecting the new space." Her main point: The United States will henceforth assume the same potential cyber battlefield as land, sea and air.

In parallel to create the concept of collective cyber defense started to work in NATO. At the November summit, the alliance decided to develop a Plan of Action on cyber defense. " According to Kommersant, the paper should be ready by April and signed in June. Important place in it will be given to establishment of the center of the NATO Response kiberintsidenty. Originally it was supposed to start in 2015, but at the insistence of the United States reduced the term of three years.

Meanwhile, the alliance is no consensus as to what powers it should possess kiberpodrazdeleniya. "Some countries consider that sufficient remedies, while others insist on the need for capacity building causing the warning strike, - explained the" b "a senior NATO .- Also, there are disputes about how to be a serious cyber attack on one of the countries of the alliance, so the rest must had to respond in accordance with the fifth article of the treaty. "

The official did not specify what countries insist on the need to develop an offensive kiberoruzhiya, but within their ranks there are surely Estonia. The U.S. military, including William Lynn III, consider the story of the Bronze Soldier and the attack on Estonian websites in 2007, the first example of an interstate cyberwar, suggesting that it unleashed Moscow. In 2008 in Tallinn opened its first center cybersecurity NATO. It provides training for IT-specialists of the alliance and recently was first modeled mini-cyberwar. As another example of cyber attacks initiated by the U.S. government lead hacking Georgian websites during the conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008. This was, in their opinion, too, was the Kremlin.

Russia's permanent representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, does not exclude that in the future kiberoruzhie alliance could be directed against Russia. Meanwhile, his colleague from the United States Ivo Daalder assured Kommersant that "the alliance is not prepared for any conflict with Russia." As for the lack of dialogue between NATO and Russia in this area, then, according to Mr. Daalder, "as the alliance itself has only just begun to develop its position on this issue, discuss possible co-operation now, just early."

Meanwhile, Russia has for some years now insists on signing the international treaty on the non-kiberoruzhiya. It would prohibit countries secretly developed and used against each other different types of kiberoruzhiya. For example, "logic bombs" that can be hidden in computers to stop them at critical moments, or damage the system itself, "botnets" that can disable or spy on websites and networks, microwave emitters, which can "burn" computer chips at considerable distances, etc.

According to the Institute of Information Security Issues MSU - the main structure engaged in lobbying the Russian concept of cyber security at the international level (heads of Vladislav Sherstyuk, former head of FAPSI), currently at least five countries are ready for a full-scale cyber war: U.S., China, India, Israel and Russia. U.S. long supported the initiative of the Russian Federation on the conclusion of a treaty on the non-kiberoruzhiya, referring to the fact that traditional agreements in the cyber network will be inefficient. However, in November, the UN group of governmental experts failed to agree a report on "Assessment of information security threats and developments in cyberspace," which was signed by 15 countries including the United States and Russia. The document recognizes the existence of a common threat that is important. And now Russia hopes to break the deadlock over the issue of signing an international treaty at a meeting of an international research consortium of information security, which will be held in April.

Meanwhile, in addition to the U.S. position on the effectiveness of such a treaty is crucial to China's position. Together with Russia, Western experts, China is often referred to as perhaps the major threat to global cyber security. On the military potential of China's cyberspace, described in the report "Opportunities for China to cyberwar and use computer networks", prepared for the Congressional group Northrop Grumman. As shown in the report, the People's Liberation Army of China, there is the doctrine of attacks on computer infrastructure of the enemy, there are units that will perform these operations. Number of soldiers in them, according to experts, can not be less than 30 thousand Chinese kiberpodrazdeleny effectiveness is largely due to the close cooperation between government agencies and hackers.

Meanwhile in the U.S., and in many other countries louder voices of skeptics who believe that the threat of cyberwarfare is greatly exaggerated and that the injection of passion only profitable defense industry (see interview with Bruce Schneier). Their words are backed up by facts: the very deputy head of the Pentagon's Lynn before moving to this department was vice president of Raytheon. This giant military-industrial complex earned on government contracts of more than $ 26 billion and a considerable portion of this amount falls exactly on the development kiberoruzhiya and means of cyber security.