The Real Meaning Of Cyberwarfare

Andy Greenberg, 03.03.10, 06:00 PM EST

Author Jeffrey Carr says we need to take a more measured approach to a new age of digital combat.

Jeffrey Carr

Connect the dots between reports of Chinese cyberspying, crippling network attacks in South Korea and Estonia and the U.S. military’s ramping up of cyber capabilities, and it would seem that a third World War is underway on the Internet.

Not so fast, says Jeffrey Carr, author of Inside Cyberwarfare, a plainspoken guide to cyber threats that was published by O’Reilly Media earlier this year. Carr, the chief executive of cybersecurity consultancy Grey Logic, takes a more measured approach to the new age of digital defense, starting with the definition of so-called “cyberwar.” In Carr’s view a war hasn’t begun until metal is flying through the air. That means the real threat to U.S. networks comes not from sleeper software planted by state-sponsored cyberspies, but from a combined attack of atoms and bits, or from cyber-enabled radical groups or criminals engaged in what’s more properly called “cyberterrorism.”

The rest HERE

I disagree with Mr. Carr. It’s exactly those sleeper software pieces and other cyberterror events that ARE cyberwar. War, as Sun Tzu framed it, is not only outright battle, but also the use of spies, understanding yourself and your enemy, and the terrain.

Mr. Carr lacks this perspective. I suggest he read The Art of War sometime.

The Chinese have been using the “Thousand Grains of Sand” approach to cyber affairs for some time now. They are patient, and they are methodical. Thus, we will be seeing the day perhaps that all of these precepts culminate in a battle won without  “metal flying through the air” as Mr. Carr puts it. This is the essence of Sun Tzu.

So Mr. Carr, just wanted to say; “You’re doing it wrong”

CoB