Saturday, April 16, 2011

Review of Inside Cyber Warfare

I would like to start off thanking Jeff Carr for his valuable insights and deep thought provoking information in Inside Cyber Warfare (ICW). Though I bought this book based only on the catchy title(ICW), this book has provided me with more than just information, it has showcased the depth at which we need to take active notice in the field of Information Security.

Recent incidents starting from RSA , Epsilon , Comodo and Wordpress to the older incidents of Titan Rain & GhostNet has clearly shown that attacks happen not just on individual resources or infrastructures, rather it can be co-ordinated  and the impact of such incidents might be large enough to impact the lives of common people including civilians.

The author has provided notable references on the cyber offensive capabilities of Russia  and China in Chapter 11.In the chapter 2, "The Rise of Non state Hacker" Jeff has quoted so much on the hacker profiles which has to be highly appreciated, considering the amount and depth and reliability he brings in with his experience in cyber intelligence.

One another point I would like to highlight here is the offensive capabilities of China have not been generally seen in defacing websites, how ever the same has been the opposite in the case of Russia. The two powers who have established systems for Cyber Warfare the idealisms and the goals of the two countries are found to be too different. Titan rain and GhostNet kind of attacks are focussed more on the information and not visible outside, though their impact on the attacked parties are high.

With no proper international rules/laws on cyber engagements and cyber war, this book provides some thoughts on the nature and task at hand. Awaiting eagerly to see the international community and their response on Cyber warfare and cyber response methodologies/protocols.

Good & informative reading for sure. I would encourage security folks to have a look at this book.