Battlefield Cyber

How China and Russia are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security

William J Holstein, Michael McLaughlin

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781633889026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The United States is being bombarded with cyber-attacks. From the surge in ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to nation states compromising the software supply chain and corporate email servers, malicious cyber activities have reached an all-time high. Russia attracts the most attention, but China is vastly more sophisticated. They have a common interest in exploiting the openness of the Internet and social media—and our democracy—to erode confidence in our institutions and to exacerbate our societal rifts to prevent us from mounting an effective response. Halting this digital aggression will require Americans to undertake sweeping changes in how we educate, organize and protect ourselves and to ask difficult questions about how vulnerable our largest technology giants are.

If we are waiting for a “Cyber 9/11” or a “Cyber Pearl Harbor,” we are misunderstanding how our adversaries wage cyber warfare. This is a timely and critically important book. No other book has analyzed the threat of cyber warfare with the depth and knowledge brought to the subject by the authors.

It has now become a cliché to argue that a “whole of government” or “whole of society” response is necessary to respond to this crisis, but that concept has never been more important. It will take many years and billions of dollars to even begin to secure our IT systems and prevent the slow rot that is destroying America. Using language that the layman can understand, we wish to educate Americans about what has happened and inspire them to seek solutions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: All Hands on Deck
• Part I: We Are at War
• Chapter 1: Cyber Warfare: The Enemy inside the Gates
• Chapter 2: Water and Oil: Weaponized Ransomware, Digital Proxies, and the Threat to Critical Infrastructure
• Chapter 3: Chinese Cyber Espionage: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History
• Chapter 4: The New Oil: Data and China’s Digital Silk Road Strategy
• Chapter 5: Stoking the Flames: How Malign Influence Exacerbates America’s Political Divides and Ethnic Tensions
• Chapter 6: Software Meltdown: The Problem with Trust
• Chapter 7: Someone Else’s Server: The Vulnerabilities of Cloud Computing
• Chapter 8: Stealing the War: Cyber Threats to America’s Defense Supply Chain
• Part II: The Response
• Chapter 9: Retreat from Globalization: Easing Corporate America’s Addiction to China
• Chapter 10: Social Disorder: Reining in Social Media and Big Tech
• Chapter 11: Re-Architecting Security: What the Private Sector Must Do
• Chapter 12: Government Action: What the Public Sector Must Do
• Chapter 13: Collective Defense: How the Public and Private Sectors Must Work Together
• Conclusion: The Metaverse, Education, and Restoring the Political “Center”
• Notes
• About the Authors