cyberwarfare

Israel has acknowledged that its recent airstrikes against Hamas were a real-time response to an ongoing cyberattack. From Twitter:

CLEARED FOR RELEASE: We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.

HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed. pic.twitter.com/AhgKjiOqS7

Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 5, 2019

I expect this sort of thing to happen more — not against major countries, but by larger countries against smaller powers. Cyberattacks are too much of a nation-state equalizer otherwise.

Another article.

EDITED TO ADD (5/7): Commentary.

Bruce Schneier

I doubt that this is actually the first “kinetic” retaliation to a cyber attack; however it’s probably the first one to be openly acknowledged by either of the parties involves. Schneier’s observation that cyberwarfare is an equaliser is correct and it’s exactly why a savvy nation-state would consider this kind of response… but let’s not forget that such cyberattacks are only as viable as they are because nation-states favour cyber-offense over cuber-defence in the first place: they’re interested in building 0-day weapons that they can use against their enemies (and their own citizens) and this entire approach runs counter to the idea of improving defensive security.

Cyberattacks don’t magically happen; they involve a series of steps. And far from being helpless, defenders can disrupt the attack at any of those steps. This framing has led to something called the “cybersecurity kill chain”: a way of thinking about cyber defense in terms of disrupting the attacker’s process. On a similar note, it’s…

Bruce Schneier

Bruce proposes a model to apply the cybersecurity kill chain to the problem of thwarting information operations of the types that we’re seeing day-to-day in the cyberwar landscape. Or at least, to understand it. Interesting reading, but – and call me cynical – I don’t know if it’s possible to implement some of the kill-stops that would be required to produce a meaningful barrier.

Tag: cyberwarfare

First Physical Retaliation for a Cyberattack

Towards an Information Operations Kill Chain