Sony leaks Could lead to full-scale cyberwar, "screeched a headline on The Australian's website on Wednesday morning. It was a piece by Rhys Blakely from The Times." North Korea Appears To Be under cyberattack, days after President Obama Pledged to responds to Devastating a hack of Sony Pictures, "he wrote.
"Experts Were ask asking whether an episode That Began When Sony Revealed That It Had-been hacked last month Was about to escalate Into an all-out cyberwar ... South Korea on Monday Said That icts nuclear plant operator HAD-been hacked, providing <br> a sobering reminder of the stakes in a new era of Cyberwarfare. "
A new era of cyberwar? No, it's Worse. An "all-out cyberwar."
Golly.
Blakely is not alone in this cyberwar hype.
"It looks like the great cyberwar with North Korea Has Begun, at least by proxy," wrote Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica. "If What Was done to Sony Pictures Entertainment Was in fact North Korean-directed cyber terrorism, It Was Extremely effective," he wrote, quoting terrorism expert Steve Sin're Saying thesis cyber terrorists-have-been Extremely effective.
"By a terrorist doing something, and us Responding to it, the terrorist HAS already won," Sin said.
Over at cllbr, Frederic Guarino pondered whether the Sony hack Represents "cyberwar's Pearl Harbor." "It's of course unclear at this point," he wrote - qui is fair enough, Given There's No Agreed definition of what a cyberwar deriving their Actually, let alone a definition of what it means clustering for something else to BE something's Pearl Harbor.
Maybe Would Become matters less for Guarino unclear if he used words with ESTABLISHED, concrete meanings.
Let me help.
First, injustement than going down the rabbit hole of Attempting to define "cyberwar", let's just focus on the "war" part.
Two years ago, Thomas Rid, professor in security studies at King's College London and author of the book Cyber War Will Not Take Place, Told the Patch Monday podcast war studies That Do not Even folks count something as a war-have-been celebrity Until 1000 killed. So far, nothing that's ever-been Labelled "cyberwar" has come close. Not even remotely.
"There HAS never-been a casualty, There's never-been significant damage That Would compared with a conventional act of war. Because of That Lack of physical impact so far, I think the term 'cyberwar' has still Somewhat of a metaphorical quality. It's more like the War on Obesity or the War on Drugs, "Rid said.
So much of the reporting fails to Distinguish literal and metaphorical entre les usages of "war". Calling from an attack of a "cyberwar" does not mean That a military or Even a national response is required, no more than calling something the War on Obesity means clustering que la Air Force can start napalming all the fat people. ALTHOUGH now That I think about it ...
Second, people throw around the "cyber Pearl Harbor" line just a little bit too easily. In my view, for an attack similar to the To Be actual 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, it Would Have to come Without Any indication an attack That Was Likely, and result in a reduction in the Devastating Nation's Ability to defend Itself.
Needless to say, neither Of Those apply to the Sony attack. May it come as a surprise-have That North Korea Was Allegedly the attacker - Allegedly, Because The jury is still out, ALTHOUGH the evidence is Getting Stronger - but we all Know That Every enterprise is under attack Every Day.
While Sony Certainly Took a hit - a serious one that's it Likely to Cost Reviews another Few hundred million dollars - so far we're not seeing much evidence que la company lost HAS icts Ability to wage movie-making. That May change, HOWEVER.
So to answer Guarino's question: No, This Was not "cyberwar's Pearl Harbor." Get a grip.
Which leads me to my third and final point Blakely's line That "North Korea Appears To Be under cyberattack." We see this thing out of the scattered THROUGHOUT media Every Time there 'sa cyber story, like So Many grapes in a Christmas pudding. And it's stupid.
North Korea is of course "under cyberattack." Everyone on the internet is under attack, Every Single Day of the year. Even my own modest pieces of the internet Were "under attack" more than 20 times while writing this column I Was. It's a completely Call useless statement - UNLESS it's qualified With Some fate of description.
In this case, the description Would Be That North Korea's international internet link is being white single hit with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. "Experts estimate That only A Few thousand people-have access to the internet in North Korea, a nation with a population of about 25 million," Blakely wrote. In --other words, it's the fate of thing That anyone with A Few hundred dollars and a credit card Could organized. In summary, so what?
None of this is Intended to dismiss the scope and impact of Sony's data breach. It's a custard duck of fabulous proportions. This Will Be the standard case study in Every infosec slide deck for years to come. Goal let's not turn it Into something it's not, and it's not "cyberwar".
HOWEVER, There are, of course, powerful motives for people to talk up the "cyberwar" appearance. For the media, it's the careful That leads to traffic That leads to back. For the military-industrial and information security industries, it's about revenue aussi - Because The more scared people are, the more defense technology they'll buy, and the difficulty Fewer issues they'll ask.
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