Hacker attacks and computer viruses are more effective than bombs and missiles
In the United States, cyber troops were equated with special forces: the administration of President Barack Obama decided to increase the status and role of the US Cyber Command in the structure of the Pentagon. Now it is equated with the large regional command.
Moreover, the cyber command of the Pentagon will also include a cyber division, which previously operated under the control of the National Security Agency (NSA). The leaders of the new powerful structure will receive even more powers: its generals will be able to determine the strategy of the new military unit themselves.
Why did the Americans suddenly decide to shake up the digital battlefield so seriously?
It turned out that the Russians are to blame again! NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers recently revealed that Russia is "the United States' main rival" in cyberspace. They say that in our country there are so skillful specialists that they can easily disable the enemy infrastructure. Rogers mentioned the Chinese as the second most digital source.
Centrifuge hit
What is Cyber Troops and what do they do? There is very little information here. It seems that today it is the most secret military structure. According to The New York Times, this spring, the US military launched a cyber war against IS (a terrorist organization banned in Russia). The United States spent almost half a billion dollars on the development of cyber weapons against it! Such weapons are also called logic bombs. These are special malware programs that launch self-destruction mechanisms for various infrastructure - from military facilities to power plants or transport control systems. They are more effective than any bomb filled with explosives, since they can provoke a disaster like Chernobyl.
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About one such weapon - the Stuxnet virus - wrote journalist David Sanger in his book. He said that in 2006 the Americans decided to stop the Iranian nuclear program. Together with Israel, they began to develop a virus to destroy the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Stuxnet "convinced" the plant's computer control system that the uranium enrichment centrifuges are operating as usual. In fact, they failed one after another … The States first tested the virus in centrifuges that the United States had left after Libya's abandonment of nuclear ambitions. They were similar to Iranian ones. In 2010 it became known: Stuxnet "killed" more than a thousand centrifuges. Iran's nuclear program has stalled for a couple of years.
Around the same time, the White House announced the creation of a separate structure in the Pentagon - the Cyber Command.
Snowden warns
Former CIA agent Edward Snowden warned that NSA surveillance of everyone and everything was only part of the US cyber strategy. The culmination of the American multi-move, he calls the unleashing of cyber war with other countries. Those viruses that cut down power plants, airports, and banking systems will “fight”. With the current level of computerization of the economy, such strikes will be more tangible than a landing. Imagine the damage the paralysis of the country's banking system can cause, even if it lasts only 24 hours. And the destruction of the passport database? Or disabling the airport control tower?
Continuing to expose former colleagues, Snowden said that in early 2015, about 40 thousand people served in the US cyber command.
It is also known that more than a billion dollars were allocated in 2013 for the cyber division, formerly part of the NSA. It is clear that now the budget will be even larger.
By the way, cyber departments have been created in the armies of China and Great Britain.
We are not worse
Little is known about Russian cyber troops either. But that they exist and operate quite successfully, one can guess from the fact that so far none of the computer systems of the Ministry of Defense have been hacked. There are no joyful reports on the penetration of other people's playful eyes into the servers of domestic government agencies: if this happened, the victorious information would be in the Western press.
And the film "Hackers" (1995), where Angelina Jolie played, tells how one of the heroes creates a virus that caused a crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
BTW
Anti-troll squads established in London and New Zealand
The London police will create a special department to fight Internet provocateurs (the so-called trolls) and help their victims who have been harassed on the Web. Scotland Yard is going to allocate almost two million dollars for this department!
According to British law, for harsh trolling that inflicted psychological trauma, you can go to jail for six months or pay a large fine.
A month earlier than the British, New Zealand began to think about criminal prosecution of Internet trolls. They even prescribed 10 principles of behavior on the Internet in the law. Hooligans-violators, as well as in England, are going to pacify with fines of tens of thousands of dollars, and especially daring ones will face imprisonment up to two years.
EXPERT OPINION
Lonely people can not afford
We talked to Sergei Lozhkin, senior anti-virus expert at Kaspersky Lab, about how to combat virtual threats.
How do you assess the level of Russian cyber troops?
- We cannot say anything concrete: such things are labeled “top secret”. But, of course, our law enforcement agencies - the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB - have information security units that are engaged in countering cyber threats both in government structures and at strategic economic facilities. Surely in our Armed Forces there are also such departments where they provide protection of military facilities from all kinds of viruses. Of course, our country has something to protect itself. I cannot say that all 100% of threats will be reflected, but the most active work is going on in this direction. We have a very high level of training for programmers, virus-fighting specialists. In addition to government agencies, antivirus companies are also involved in the study of threats. In Russia, this is our laboratory.
Which virus is the most perfect now?
- At the moment - Project Sauron. It's very hard to find it. The virus uses sophisticated encryption algorithms, spreads via flash drives and e-mail, and most importantly - leaves no traces on the hard drive. If he manages to steal secret information and transfer it into the wrong hands, then there can really be big problems.
When it comes to viruses that can physically disable infrastructure, Stuxnet remains unsurpassed.
Can some terrorist hackers create a virus that will blow up, for example, a nuclear power plant?
- The likelihood that some maniacs or terrorists can create a complex virus that will penetrate the protected infrastructure and cause its destabilization tends to zero. Only large teams with very strong specialists are capable of such complex projects. And their activity is possible only with the help of the state. A lone genius who creates a terrible cyber weapon somewhere in an underground laboratory is a plot from Hollywood films. In life, this is unreal.
Arthur Pugach