Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [108]
Initiating event
Initiating events are any events that cause latent tensions to boil over and trigger politically motivated attacks. Just as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand put countries aligned with Austria-Hungary onto a collision course with countries aligned with Serbia and eventually led to World War I, similar initiating events have led to the outbreak of politically motivated cyber attacks.
The 2007 Cyber War against Estonian websites took place against the backdrop of simmering tensions between Estonia and Russia. Tensions between Estonia and Russia are primarily a result of the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic nation-state in 1940 at the start of World War II. Following this annexation the Soviet Union initiated a crackdown, arresting more than 8,000 Estonian citizens and executing an additional 2,000 citizens.
The proximate cause for the cyber attacks on Estonia was the Estonian government’s decision to relocate a Soviet Red Army war memorial from central Tallinn, the Estonian capital city. Many Estonians see the memorial as a stark reminder of the former Soviet Union’s “occupation” of Estonia, whereas many Russians view the statue as a memorial to the Red Army’s sacrifices in its liberation of Estonia from Nazi Germany.
In the immediate aftermath of the statue’s relocation, angry youths with links to the Kremlin rioted around the Estonian Embassy in Moscow. Russian officials also insisted that the statue be returned to its original location, and in an unprecedented move, demanded that the current Estonian government resign. These riots in the physical world were paralleled by a corresponding campaign of digital violence.
Cyber mobilization
According to Adam Elkus, cyber mobilization “is a process of massing force against decisive points” (http://www.groupintel.com/2009/02/13/the-rise-of-cyber-mobilization/). The aggrieved actor uses the initiating event to incite patriotic hackers into action.
Examples of cyber mobilization abound. Chinese patriotic hackers have traditionally rallied support to their cause via various online message boards and chat rooms. In 2008, Chinese citizens created the Anti-CNN web forum in response to “the lies and distortions of facts from the Western media.” Chinese citizens and patriotic hackers believed the Western media unfairly criticized China’s treatment of Tibetan people. Although the creation of the Anti-CNN forum and the mobilization of Chinese patriotic hackers against Western media companies did not result in any successful high-profile attacks against Western media websites, the Anti-CNN forum was able to mobilize a number of Chinese citizens in its efforts to counter perceived biases in Western media coverage. In April 2008, shortly after the web forum launched, the website claimed to receive 500,000 visits per day.
Cyber attack
Politically motivated cyber attacks range in sophistication from small-scale denial of service attacks to well-organized and stealthy espionage attacks. The sophistication of a cyber attack is dependent on the skill of attackers and the amount of reconnaissance performed prior to the attack. A sophisticated attacker aided with intelligence gathered from reconnaissance can execute a devastating attack, whereas an unsophisticated attacker without any intelligence on its targets will be relegated to simple brute-force attacks.
Cases Studies of Previous Cyber Attacks
A deeper understanding of this model can be achieved by analyzing previous politically motivated cyber attacks. To fully test the utility of this model, it is important to study previous cyber wars between nation-states, cyber attacks by nation-states against nonstate actors, and cyber attacks by nonstate actors against nation-states.
Case study: Cyber attacks against Georgia
Latent political tensions between Russia and Georgia existed prior to the breakup of the