Technical challenges are not a great hindrance to global cyber security cooperation; rather, a nation's lack of cybersecurity action plans that combine technology, management procedures, organizational structures, law, and human competencies into national security strategies are. Strengthening international partnerships to secure the cyber domain will require understanding the technical, legal, and defense challenges faced by our international partners. Identifying the gaps in international cooperation and their socioeconomic and political bases will provide the knowledge required to support our partners' cybersecurity and contribute to building a cyber environment less hospitable to misuse. It will also help US policy makers to determine the appropriate escalation of diplomatic and defensive responses to irresponsible countries in cyberspace. Further research and discussion will likely enable the timely development of the response framework for US sponsorship of sound global norms to guide global cybersecurity. This will also assist the US defense, diplomatic, and development communities in building consensus, leveraging resources to enhance global cybersecurity, and coordinating US global outreach to those countries most beset by cyber crime and conflict.

Malicious cyber actors exploit gaps in technology and international cybersecurity cooperation to launch multistage, multi-jurisdictional attacks. Rather than consider technical attribution the challenge, a more accurate argument would be that "solutions to preventing the attacks of most concern, multistage multi-jurisdictional ones, will require not only technical methods, but legal/policy solutions as well." Deep understanding of the social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics of the nation-states where cyber threat actors operate is currently lacking. This project aims to develop a qualitative framework to guide US policy responses to states that are either origin or transit countries of cyber attacks. The current focus of attribution efforts within the national security context concentrates on law enforcement paradigms aiming to gather evidence to prosecute an individual attacker. This is usually dependent on technical means of attribution. In malicious cyber actions, spoofing or obfuscation of an identity most often occurs. It is not easy to know who conducts malicious cyber activity. But private sector reports have proven that it is possible to determine the geographic reference of threat actors to varying degrees. Executive Summary * Chapter 1 - Introduction * Chapter 2 - The Cyber Environment * A Holistic View of Cyberspace * Multistage, Multijurisdictional Attacks * Spoofing Machines to Mask Geography * Chapter 3 - American Sponsorship of Embryonic Global Norms * American Sponsorship of Global Norms * The Anti-trafficking-in-Persons Initiative * The Global Culture of Cybersecurity and Embryonic Norms for State Responsibility in Cyberspace * The Global Cybersecurity Behavioral Baseline * The WSIS and Global Cybersecurity * Internationally Wrongful Acts in Cyberspace * Chapter 4 - A Framework for Development, Diplomacy, and Defense * Development, Diplomacy, and Defense Responses * A Need for Norms on Cyber Weapons * Language for "Victims of Trafficking in Malicious Code" Legislation * Leading by Example: US-based Entities' Responsibility * Chapter 5 - Conclusion * "Where Do We Go from Here? * Linking It All Together * Abbreviations

In a world of increasing dependence on information technology, the prevention of cyberattacks on a nation's important computer and communications systems and networks is a problem that looms large. Given the demonstrated limitations of passive cybersecurity defense measures, it is natural to consider the possibility that deterrence might play a useful role in preventing cyberattacks against the United States and its vital interests. At the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Research Council undertook a two-phase project aimed to foster a broad, multidisciplinary examination of strategies for deterring cyberattacks on the United States and of the possible utility of these strategies for the U.S. government. The first phase produced a letter report providing basic information needed to understand the nature of the problem and to articulate important questions that can drive research regarding ways of more effectively preventing, discouraging, and inhibiting hostile activity against important U.S. information systems and networks. The second phase of the project entailed selecting appropriate experts to write papers on questions raised in the letter report. A number of experts, identified by the committee, were commissioned to write these papers under contract with the National Academy of Sciences. Commissioned papers were discussed at a public workshop held June 10-11, 2010, in Washington, D.C., and authors revised their papers after the workshop. Although the authors were selected and the papers reviewed and discussed by the committee, the individually authored papers do not reflect consensus views of the committee, and the reader should view these papers as offering points of departure that can stimulate further work on the topics discussed. The papers presented in this volume are published essentially as received from the authors, with some proofreading corrections made as limited time allowed.

The inherent nature of cyberspace has created an opportunity for adversaries to exploit vulnerabilities of victim state’s cyberinfrastructures anonymously for a myriad of reasons. States and nonstate actors can use multiple avenues and techniques to route malicious malware with relative ease and safety. Further, states can utilize nonstate actors in their efforts to achieve political goals with the ability to deny involvement in the act. This is due to both the nature of cyberspace, deficiencies in international law, and the limitations of technical attribution. Therefore, this paper explores what factors, under international law, could be considered in holding nation-states or nonstate actors accountable for malicious cyber acts. The problem/solution method is used to review the relevant deficiencies in international law, general problems associated with attribution in the cyber domain, and other variables that could produce a more comprehensive assessment of whether a particular entity should be held accountable for a cyber action. Instituting and utilizing a multi-dimensional approach to attribution can provide the information necessary to determine responsibility for malicious cyber acts and provide victim states the confidence to respond appropriately.

This illuminating book examines and refines the commonplace "wisdom" about cyber conflict-its effects, character, and implications for national and individual security in the 21st century. "Cyber warfare" evokes different images to different people. This book deals with the technological aspects denoted by "cyber" and also with the information operations connected to social media's role in digital struggle. The author discusses numerous mythologies about cyber warfare, including its presumptively instantaneous speed, that it makes distance and location irrelevant, and that victims of cyber attacks deserve blame for not defending adequately against attacks. The author outlines why several widespread beliefs about cyber weapons need modification and suggests more nuanced and contextualized conclusions about how cyber domain hostility impacts conflict in the modern world. After distinguishing between the nature of warfare and the character of wars, chapters will probe the widespread assumptions about cyber weapons themselves. The second half of the book explores the role of social media and the consequences of the digital realm being a battlespace in 21st-century conflicts. The book also considers how trends in computing and cyber conflict impact security affairs as well as the practicality of people's relationships with institutions and trends, ranging from democracy to the Internet of Things.

The result of a three-year project, this manual addresses the entire spectrum of international legal issues raised by cyber warfare.

We depend on information and information technology (IT) to make many of our day-to-day tasks easier and more convenient. Computers play key roles in transportation, health care, banking, and energy. Businesses use IT for payroll and accounting, inventory and sales, and research and development. Modern military forces use weapons that are increasingly coordinated through computer-based networks. Cybersecurity is vital to protecting all of these functions. Cyberspace is vulnerable to a broad spectrum of hackers, criminals, terrorists, and state actors. Working in cyberspace, these malevolent actors can steal money, intellectual property, or classified information; impersonate law-abiding parties for their own purposes; damage important data; or deny the availability of normally accessible services. Cybersecurity issues arise because of three factors taken together - the presence of malevolent actors in cyberspace, societal reliance on IT for many important functions, and the presence of vulnerabilities in IT systems. What steps can policy makers take to protect our government, businesses, and the public from those would take advantage of system vulnerabilities? At the Nexus of Cybersecurity and Public Policy offers a wealth of information on practical measures, technical and nontechnical challenges, and potential policy responses. According to this report, cybersecurity is a never-ending battle; threats will evolve as adversaries adopt new tools and techniques to compromise security. Cybersecurity is therefore an ongoing process that needs to evolve as new threats are identified. At the Nexus of Cybersecurity and Public Policy is a call for action to make cybersecurity a public safety priority. For a number of years, the cybersecurity issue has received increasing public attention; however, most policy focus has been on the short-term costs of improving systems. In its explanation of the fundamentals of cybersecurity and the discussion of potential policy responses, this book will be a resource for policy makers, cybersecurity and IT professionals, and anyone who wants to understand threats to cyberspace.

What people are saying about Inside Cyber Warfare "The necessary handbook for the 21st century." --Lewis Shepherd, Chief Tech Officer and Senior Fellow, Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments "A must-read for policy makers and leaders who need to understand the big-picture landscape of cyber war." --Jim Stogdill, CTO, Mission Services Accenture You may have heard about "cyber warfare" in the news, but do you really know what it is? This book provides fascinating and disturbing details on how nations, groups, and individuals throughout the world are using the Internet as an attack platform to gain military, political, and economic advantages over their adversaries. You'll learn how sophisticated hackers working on behalf of states or organized crime patiently play a high-stakes game that could target anyone, regardless of affiliation or nationality. Inside Cyber Warfare goes beyond the headlines of attention-grabbing DDoS attacks and takes a deep look inside multiple cyber-conflicts that occurred from 2002 through summer 2009. Learn how cyber attacks are waged in open conflicts, including recent hostilities between Russia and Georgia, and Israel and Palestine Discover why Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Vkontakte, and other sites on the social web are mined by the intelligence services of many nations Read about China's commitment to penetrate the networks of its technologically superior adversaries as a matter of national survival Find out why many attacks originate from servers in the United States, and who's responsible Learn how hackers are "weaponizing" malware to attack vulnerabilities at the application level