Cyber Enigma

Unravelling the Terror in the Cyber World

E. Dilipraj

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000517651
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

Cyber and its related technologies such as the Internet was introduced to the world only in late 1980s, and today it is unimaginable to think of a life without it. Despite being ubiquitous, cyber technology is still seen as an enigma by many, mainly due to its rapid development and the high level of science involved. In addition to the existing complexities of the technology, the level of threat matrix surrounding the cyber domain further leads to various misconceptions and exaggerations. Cyber technology is the future, thus forcing us to understand this complex domain to survive and evolve as technological beings.

To understand the enigma, the book analyzes and disentangles the issues related to cyber technology. The author unravels the threats that terrorize the cyber world and aims to decrypt its domain. It also presents the existing reality of cyber environment in India and charts out a few recommendations for enhancing the country's cyber security architecture. Further, the book delves into detailed analysis of various issues like hacking, dark web, cyber enabled terrorism and covert cyber capabilities of countries like the US and China.

Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

1
Understanding the Cyber World

Throughout the history of mankind, no invention or discovery has been as irrepressible with regard to the nature of influence as cyber technology in the rapidly changing but in a more progressive atmosphere. Many inventions and discoveries from the ancient period since the stone age such as the discovery of the use of fire, invention of bow and arrow, invention of wheel and, in later centuries, the discovery of new continents, oil fields, and in recent times the invention of aircrafts, technology for dropping bombs/missiles and rockets including invention of nuclear bombs, have all revolutionised the capability of humanity in various aspects and has contributed immensely in the evolution of the human race. However, cyber technology which was developed only in the later part of 20^th century has rapidly penetrated into all walks of life and has become an indispensible part of human life throughout the world.

Computer technology along with high-end technologies such as personal computers, networking, internet, mobile phones, etc. have succeeded in establishing a gigantic virtual space within the real world. It is popularly referred to as the cyber world. This cyber world is expanding at an exponential rate with more and more new users being attracted to it for various reasons. Hence, due to the ever growing popularity, this domain ultimately has become an all pervasive medium for communication and connecting everyone around the world. Therefore, it is natural, that such an essential technology and network where the interests of a number of players are divergent and inconsistent with one another, is bound to face numerous conflicts with varying intensities that could result in serious repercussions in society in the real world. Hence, there is a pressing need to understand the cyber world in general and the various conflicts taking place in that sphere in particular, in order to facilitate, secure and refurbish the domain to be free of major conflicts at least in the future so that the human race would be able to depend on it more ‘safely’ than ever before.

In order to gain a better understanding of the growing relevance of cyber space to humanity in the present and future, this chapter introduces the cyber world by briefly looking into the evolution of cyber as a domain of conflict and warfare.

Evolution of Warfare

Evolution, the key for survival of mankind has never been without complexities and conflicts. A number of wars have taken place from time to time around the globe, fought by mankind for various reasons, but the mediums/domains in which these wars were fought varied from time to time depending upon the capability possessed by the human race at that particular period of time. In fact, conflicts have been one of the key factors that enabled mankind to evolve in thousands of years of existence in this world. These conflicts range from intra-personal, inter-personal, societal, intra-regional, inter-regional, intra-state, inter-state conflicts and so on. While all conflicts need not lead to a battle between the conflicting parties, the ones that do lead result in a catastrophe to either of the parties or to both in most cases.

Elaborating further on the after effects of conflicts it may be stated that a small scale conflict may not impact humanity as a whole, but conflicts fought on a large scale, usually involving two or more states and termed as ‘Wars’, might result in altering the future of mankind. In fact, human beings have been indulging in wars for centuries and the major reasons resulting in such wars could be invasion, colonisation, accession and/or conquering of land which was the most contested factor. Water bodies too, like rivers, seas and oceans, became the second domain for indulging in warfare when naval capabilities were developed way back in 3000 BC¹ or even before. It remained that way for centuries and several wars were fought across the world along these two domains with the objective to prove their supremacy in strategy from time to time. The never satisfying need to dominate and to have access to land and water led to major developments in the methods of fighting a war, type of weapons and tactics used during the land and naval warfare. However, there had been no drastic change in the domain of warfare itself until the early 20^th century.

Invention of aircraft led to the opening of a new domain for warfare in air. Credited to have been invented by the Wright brothers with the successful test flight on December 17, 1903,² planes dominated in war and changed the whole scenario of warfare. It was utilised effectively during the ‘Great War’ or ‘First World War (1914–1918)’ in which aircrafts were used to drop troops or weapons. The countries in possession of aircrafts proved its effectiveness in several ways during aerial combat.³ Eventually, with the aid of rapid advancement in aircraft technology, air power was used extensively during the ‘Second World War’, and it became the first big war covering the three domains - land, water and air. They were equally made use of for fighting between the armed forces of Allied and Axis Powers around the world.

Emergence of the Fourth Domain of Warfare

During the Second World War Germany, under the Nazis, developed and used rocket technology to drop bombs or missiles, using its V1 and successful V2 missiles.⁴ After the victory of the Allies in the Second World War, the world witnessed the emergence of two Super Power Blocs led by USA and USSR. In spite of the fact that these two countries were allies during the war, they not only started having differences mainly on ideological issues but also had a lot of hostility and suspicion. They were keen to maintain status quo and fought many proxy wars at the cost of small and weak states and tried to establish one’s superiority over the other by stockpiling nuclear weapons and deploying different kinds of missiles of various ranges apart from other conventional weapons deployed on land, in water and in air. They, thus, maintained power equilibrium between the two in the tri-domain warfare theatre and at the same time searched for ways and means to dominate the other.

This search during the ‘Cold War’ phase, led to the emergence of a new domain of warfare in the high-ground i.e. outer space, as a result of the growing capabilities to reach space by the two Power Blocs of the world. The USSR initially succeeded in the space race and went a step ahead of the USA with the successful launch of “Sputnik 1” satellite into space on October 04, 1957⁵, thereby stimulating a burning desire for space exploration. Thus, the space race between the two World Powers began and escalated when the Soviets again successfully launched “Sputnik 2”, this time with a living entity “Laika”, a dog, onboard the vessel into space on November 03, 1957.⁶ The Americans on the other hand failed in their first attempt to launch their rocket named “Vanguard” on December 06, 1957. The Soviets were well ahead in the race in spite of the fact that Americans had the advantage of having a large number of German Rocket Scientists including Wernher von Braun with them who was the master mind of the Nazi Germany’s Missile Programmes.⁷ After almost a whole decade of trailing behind the Soviets, Americans finally got their opportunity to move ahead in the race when they successfully made their first manned mission to the Moon on July 20, 1969⁸.

After a few years, space race between the two world powers began to dwindle due to various reasons ranging from requirements of huge financial investments for such projects, realisation of the need for cooperation than competition between countries, signing of various peace treaties between them and most importantly the emergence of USA as a single dominant power post Soviet disintegration. Although the space race did not lead to any direct confrontation between the two World Powers yet it led to awareness about the importance of space in the future years. This realisation also led to the development of interest in exploration of space domain among other countries that viewed space exploration as a matter of national pride and wanted to achieve a higher position in global order. Therefore, many countries began projects on space exploration and a few countries like India and China achieved a considerable success in this area.

The aspiration to conquer high grounds always existed not only among the two World Powers but also with other countries who worked with enthusiasm with the objective to achieve a superior position in the space domain. The advancement in this domain has not only led to enhancement of the technology used in the manufacture of missiles, aircrafts, air defence and missile defence technologies but also led to the development of space based weapon systems by countries like the USA, Russia and China, which has further widened the domain of space war. The catalogue of space weapon systems includes Anti-Satellite Missiles (ASAT) capability, Tactical High Energy Lasers, ICBMs, Orbital Re-entry Vehicles, and High-Altitude Weapons causing Electro Magnetic Radiations. With these weapons already in operational stage and more projects being in various testing and development stages, it is an undeniable fact that space has become the fourth domain of warfare.

Evolution of the Fifth Domain of Warfare

While the four domains of warfare–land, water, air and space-were conceived exclusively for the purpose of warfare since the beginning, the field of cyber becoming the fifth domain of warfare cannot be ruled out. The capability to communicate and calculate has always been a distinctive factor which could differentiate mankind from other living entities on this planet. Apart from this, mankind by nature has the ability to invent new products and develop new technologies in all fields and it has remained consistent all through the evolution process. The desire for consistent innovation in the field of communications and calculation resulted in the development of computers and its related technologies. In view of the enormous interests in this field, funding dedicated to the development of computer and networking technology were made available by several players including military and private sector, and as a result it grew in a massive way within few decades of its emergence. Simultaneously, the concept of global networking of computers achieved through ‘internet technology’, combined with the widespread use of computers around the world, revolutionised the global communication system. Furthermore, a variety of services were offered through the internet and development of technology in the field of computers from personal computers, laptops, and palm tops led to a rapid growth in the number of users. This led to enormous increase in dependency on this all pervasive technology for all purposes. But it should be noted here that neither the computer and its related technologies nor internet were conceived with an aim to grow so big and confront so many security challenges during their developmental phases.

With the success of computers and commercialisation of internet in early 1990s, the usage of this all-encompassing technology increased radically as the preferred means for computing, data sharing and communication. Moreover, the invention of new portable devices like laptops and mobile phones has created a world of nomadic computing and communications systems. With billions of users and devices connected to one another along with billions of Giga Bytes (GB) of information stored, processed and shared in the networks, it can be said that mankind has succeeded in creating a ‘Virtual World’ with the help of computers, internet and other networks around the world. But this virtual world which is also known as the ‘Cyber World’ is the most vulnerable location for the new age conflicts which will not only affect the cyber environment but will also ruin the real world, depending on the magnitude of the conflict.

One important fact to be kept in view is that unlike the four domains of warfare where armed units or weapon systems are deployed to conduct warfare, the cyber domain just requires one individual with a computer and a sound knowledge of the cyber technology to cause enormous damage and loss to anyone. In other words the fifth domain of warfare enables individuals to become warriors even while enjoying the comfort of their homes/offices. This scenario appears more complex in view of the fact that this technology is open to all and anyone with the intention and capacity can start a cyber conflict to put forward his/her own interests. Therefore, the question before us is—how does a conflict in the cyber world affect the real world? In order to understand this and also to know why understanding cyber technology is very important for the safety and security of the real world, one has to understand how the real world is dependent on the cyber world.

Before the advent of computers, everyday work was being carried out either manually or with the help of multiple devices designed for specific purposes like abacus, calculators, typewriters, telegraphic machines, telephones, radios, etc. Moreover, where sensitive information was to be shared like in military, they followed its own reticent methods like encrypted letters, coded languages, Morse codes, dedicated radio frequencies and other conventional methods of information sharing. The military equipments and weapon systems were stand alone devices and did not have facility for networking. The weapon systems were operated manually, which not only required huge manpower but also consumed more time.

But the introduction of the computers and networking technology on commercial basis changed the whole scenario as it enabled to club all activities of calculations, computing and communications on one platform along with other activities such as knowledge gathering, data storage, information processing, and entertainment. The commercialisation of internet virtually reduced the size of the world and made it within the reach of one’s finger tip through services varying from emails, websites, blogs, live chats, forums, file sharing, music and video streaming and more recently in connecting people across the globe through online social networking sites. With more and more services offered through the internet which help in easy communications and perform other functions is resulting in more and more users to adopt this technology every day. With the use of mobile communication equipments like laptops, cellular phones connected to the internet, this nomadic communication network has seen a major increase. With more than 3.4 billion users worldwide, internet is the biggest network in the world where enormous quantum of information is being stored, processed and shared, thereby becoming a vulnerable target for any cyber attack.

Computer and its related technologies made quick inroads into the sensitive sectors like banking, military, e-governance, nuclear, industrial and manufacturing establishments of countries and are offering a wide variety of services. These critical establishments, which form the backbone and are responsible for stability, satisfactory functioning and development of any country, are known as National Critical Information Infrastructure (NCII) and in recent years most of these NCIIs are completely relying on cyber technology for efficient functioning. More specifically, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)⁹ systems and other industrial control systems used in almost all the NCIIs and industrial sectors, totally rely on cyber technology.

In fact, it is these SCADA systems which face the maximum threat in the cyber world. For instance, the STUXNET malware coding - allegedly to have been jointly developed by the US and Israel for targeting the nuclear establishments of Iran successfully disrupted the nuclear development program of Ir...