Cyber is a hot word these days. From Nuclear assets to the device in your hand is affected by cyber-attacks every day. So what is cyberwar and who is doing all this and for what purpose?
Let’s start with how cyber war is different from conventional war, how it is carried out and what impact it has and what kind of common attacks are there, who is leading in cyber warfare.
Cyberwar
We live in the 21st century, the Age of the Computer. Every task we do almost require a computer and everyone is connected to each other via the internet. As the internet has provided many facilities, it has some flaws/backdoors. Some people use it to make software to benefit people around the Globe and others use it for illegal purposes like Hacking, spying, and other stuff like this.
To protect the user from such attacks Cyber departments has been established in almost every country to protect its critical infrastructure from such attack. Some Attacks are sponsored by even Governments and specific hacker groups against other countries.
Cyberwar vs Conventional war
Cyberwar is different from conventional war because in this a person or Government just needs a Computer, the internet, and a Geek. In Conventional war recruiting and training takes a lot of time and budget while in the Case of Cyber, Geek personnel having passion and the right approach to solving and finding back doors in software is needed which is very cost-effective.
Cyber is a better option as it is very difficult to mitigate the attack the first time and sometimes it even goes unnoticed which happened in the case of the “Iran Nuclear power plant shut down by STUXNET”.
The Countries like Iran, Russia US, India Pakistan, Australia, and Israel are the most known for such kinds of cyber ware attacks and vice versa.
How it is carried out
Cyberwar is different from conventional war. So the method/ approach is also different. In cyberattacks, the first target is located through different techniques like spoofing, reconnaissance and etc.
Then the loopholes of the system are found after that virus (computer code) is built and deployed on the target system. One thing that is amazing about this process is "Remote execution“. Everything is done remotely and the target does not know what is happening to it. like a Ghost. An example is the Recent recording Leakage of Pakistani PM and then those are sold to DARK WEB.
Types of Cyber Attacks
There are many cyber attacks but the most common are the following:
1: Man in the middle attack
2: Phishing Attack
3: Malware attack
4: Password attack
5: Social Engineering
6: Denial of Service Attack
7: Zero-day Attack
Conclusion:
Cyberattacks are growing day by day and causing a huge impact on the global economy.
“Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025”
- Source
Every Country should be aware of the damage if not taking precautionary measures in cyberspace before it is too late. There should be a Cyber Department in every country and arrange seminars and webinars to the awareness about cyber war. The data shows which countries are leading in the cyber field.