The United States is Planning Cyber-Attacks Against their Enemies

US Army Cyber Command

The US military wants to go systematically "closer to the activity of the enemy" to neutralize in the bud their abilities and their strategies.

The message of the Americans is clear: in cyberspace, the party is over soon. According to The New York Times (NYT), the US government wants to go on the offensive and is now considering preventive cyber-strikes in foreign state networks to counter enemy cyber-combatants.

This new strategy would be implemented by the US Cyber Command, a joint combat force backed by the NSA, which get last May "unified command" status. This gives it as much military autonomy as the US Special Operations Command, one of the pillars of the American war against terrorism.

This change of doctrine is substantial. Until now, the US Cyber Command had a rather defensive posture trying to counter the attackers when they entered the American networks. According to a strategic document revealed by NYT, it’s now a question of going systematically "closer to the origin of the activity of the enemy" in order "to identify the weaknesses, to know the intentions and the abilities of the opponents, and to counter-attack."

The purpose of these permanent preemptive strikes is to force the enemy into a defensive posture and thereby reduce their attacking abilities. In other words, the US Cyber Command now believes that the best defense is the attack.

Risk of climbing

These cyber-strikes could purely target cyber infrastructures - command and control servers, proxies networks,etc - but also conventional military installations.

For example, US cyber-fighters could be responsible for neutralizing an enemy's nuclear weapons through a cyberattack. And this is what they are trying to do with North Korea, according to the revelations of The Daily Beast last May

A similar strategy was deployed a few years ago in Iran, with the operation Nitro Zeus. This consisted of hacking the defense, communication and energy systems so that they could be neutralized in the event of armed conflict. An approach that had lost its meaning with the Iranian nuclear deal ... but which could return to the forefront with the unilateral exit of the United States from this agreement.

But this new American strategy is not without risk. It could easily provoke an escalation in cyberattacks, degrading the overall security of the Internet.

• This is my guide to secure your PC after a fresh installation of Windows and like I also said it in this article, Cortana isn't a good feature which respect your privacy and your security. Go check it out!

• And finally, for me, there is no digital switch-over without a real Cyber-Security strategy and this is why you should be aware of it!