The Age and Advancement of Cyber Warfare

Not all wars are fought with weapons. Not all of them are physical. Not all of them are diplomatic either. In fact today, most of them stem under one newly developed umbrella, which is virtual reality.

You use your computers and the Internet for many reasons as an individual but what if you were an entire organization using it? A government? A kingdom? What if you could delve into your neighboring or enemy countries and hack into their information, data, maps and future plans? All with a couple of clicks and some coding on one screen. Would you feel tempted to do it?

This is cyber warfare.

First, we need to understand that cyber warfare takes many forms and springs from different motives by different groups or individuals. This new age of cyber warfare includes theft of information- governmental and private, hacking and interfering with democratic elections and the redistribution of money, which is becoming more and more common. 

And it can be both well and ill intended. An example of well-intention is in 2012 when one Palestinian hacked into banks and redistributed millions to poverty-stricken areas in Palestine. Of course, he was caught, imprisoned and put to death soon after, but to some he is a brave national hero willing to go beyond boundaries, but does that make his argument and action an ethical one?

We all hear of cyber warfare as being used against governments, banks and other massive corporations and organizations but considering the words of political activist Edward Snowden- what he brought to light is rather intriguing. 

Not only is cyber warfare which includes espionage, hacking, attacking, controlling or terrorizing being used against the government, it is actually mostly used by them. Do you ever feel like you are being watched? Do you ever wonder if the electronic devices you surround yourself with record and store everything you say, or track you? The answer to all of those is yes. This type of public espionage could and actually does give rise to numerous other illegal activities both by the government and other system hackers, of course we cannot use the term cyber warfare and cyber spying interchangeably but one does lead to the other. What you have to know is that hacking into a system takes time and patience. It is a concoction of breaking the IB program, intense coding and owner imitation. It really is an acquired talent and everyone is on the lookout for the first hacking click. 

Politically, tensions between countries will push to new measures and this includes cyber warfare. 

Financially, the monetary gap will always attract new ways of redistribution and this includes cyber warfare. 

And economically, new practices might introduce sabotage and this includes cyber warfare. 

It is said that cyber warfare is the future of all wars, and is by far the most advanced one. Now more than ever, governments and developing countries are looking out for this rising threat, and looking for new ways of implementing cyber protection and security.

How about you, would you compare cyber warfare to a physically-fought war? And do you think you might be affected by it? 

Written by: A.E.S.

April, 2019.