Cyber Warfare—How To Fight the Electronic War

Cyber warfare refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. Cyber espionage is the act or practice of obtaining secrets (sensitive, proprietary, or classified information) from individuals, competitors, rivals, groups, governments, and enemies. It can be for military, political, or economic advantage using illegal exploitation methods on the Internet, networks, software, or computers. Threat of crippling attacks on telecommunications and computer networks to steal information and sabotage—also called advanced persistent threats (APT)—is on the rise.

Effective detection and prevention of APT attacks depends on multiple factors. The attackers have sophisticated technologies and skilled hackers at their disposal. Therefore, while traditional security measures such as perimeter security and data protection are a must, organizations should go a step further and form a strategy to countermeasure these advanced attacks. Some of the proactive measures that can be taken by the government and business organizations include:

• Identifying the key assets to be protected

• Defining and enforcing security policies on all the technical assets and the users

• Educating the users to prevent them from being victims of targeted spear-phishing attacks

• Forming a skilled Security Analysis and Emergency Response Team

In this Knowledge Sharing article, Smitha Mave introduces various forms of cyber warfare with case studies and required security measures to identify and stop these attacks. Smitha also elaborates on cyber warfare techniques and ways to protect your organization from advanced persistent threats.

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