Cyber warfare "could spark military response"

 

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Posted on 5 Nov 2009 at 15:19

The British Government has given its clearest indication of how seriously it takes the threat of cyber warfare, with a senior Whitehall official saying an attack on the UK communications network could trigger a military response.

The revelation came during a House of Lords Home Affairs committee meeting discussing EU policy on protecting Europe from large-scale cyber attacks.

“Just because you happen to have been attacked in cyberspace doesn't mean that you shouldn't respond kinetically, for example,” said Dr Steve Marsh, the deputy director of the Office of Cyber Security, a new department within the Cabinet Office.

According to Smith, the biggest stumbling block to a direct response to any attack is understanding where the attack originated.

Just because you happen to have been attacked in cyberspace doesn't mean that you shouldn't respond kinetically

“You do get into the problem of attribution,” he said. “How do you know where the attack is coming from, who is behind it and what is their intention?

“These are very difficult conceptual problems and this is an area where the Office of Cyber Security is working very closing with the Ministry of Defence and other bodies to better understand the full landscape.”

Poor intelligence

Smith went on to say that the Office of Cyber Security was unhappy with the quality and quantity of information it had on the threat of cyber warfare, partly because of the cottage industry nature of online threats.

“We are not satisfied with the information that we have, but that's not through a lack of trying,” said Smith. “This is an area where it's fundamentally difficult to spot the indicators and warnings that you would see in conventional military activity.

“The development of these techniques goes on behind closed doors so it is very hard to get a good understanding of the techniques being developed or the intentions behind them. We don't know as much as we'd like to.”

As part of the security services' ongoing work against the threat of cyber warfare, officials will next week run a nationwide test – codenamed "White Noise" - which is intended to test the UK's response capability in the event of a "catastrophic communications failure”.

“The scenario will be based on the loss of the public PSTN voice network and that will collapse nationwide in this scenario - although we will still have data and mobile communication,” said Geoff Smith, head of communications security for the Department of Business, Innovations and Skills.

“There are several hundred people involved and we've spent a lot of money getting contractors to help us on this and what we will learn is whether we can, as a Government, respond in real time to managing information from the industry and getting a clear idea of what can be done to recover.”

Author: Stewart Mitchell