The future of cyberwar is hard to predict. However, the past and present actions of experts, institutions, and governments portray some hope for the future. And as it stands out, cyber warfare’s future will depend on two things. Firstly, the mindset of each participant, which will include policies and strategies, will play a significant role. Also, an array of technological tools will equally play an important role.
Targeted and intentional cyberattacks are rampant from dysfunctional websites, breaches of cloud storage services, slow web pages, electricity outages, and malfunctioning machines. While these may seem to be general technological issues, they are sometimes the results of cyberattacks. Of course, reliable documentation indicates these issues did not begin today. And for each incident, there were sufficient measures to counter the attacks.
Cyber Warfare: The Future Has Always Been Here
The war on cybercrime is not a war for the future. This war has been going on for several years and is still ongoing. Cybercrime involves a computer-based attack against another computer program. For example, websites failing to load en masse is often a result of a cyber-criminal action known as distributed delay of service (DDoS). The process usually involves hackers loading a website or webpage with fake requests to cause a loading failure when visitors make genuine requests. The most notable DDoS attack, christened Web War 1, happened in 2007 in Estonia, Eastern Europe.
Also, the Stuxnet, caused by the Iranian nuclear facilities, resulted in centrifuge machines spinning abnormally. It is arguably the first cybercrime that caused physical damage. As a result, the US and Israel ganged up against Iran, adversely hindering Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Notably, rare cases of cyberattacks that caused electricity outages happened in 2015 and 2016. Both attacks were aimed at Ukraine by Russian hackers.
The Future Of Cyberwar
International bodies and governments already have a synchronized plan to fight warfare. There are already laid out rules for a fair fight. But more importantly, there are lines deemed too cruel to use and tactics too inhuman to utilize. Things are pretty different in the cybercrime spheres. There are no laid down rules, and there are absolutely no boundaries. There is no definition or clarity when it comes to cyber-warfare.
Since attackers aim their malware or malware at nearly everyone, cyber warfare, too, targets everyone. Civilians are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to their poor or underdeveloped systems. Even more, many instances of cyber-attacks never have physical targets. This brings us to a topic that very few want to discuss—cyber espionage.
Ideally, cyber espionage will be here longer and involves consistently monitoring the military plans of foreign citizens of interest. Of course, cyberespionage could also focus on the general populace.