research in information security and information warfare- the economics, warfare, policies, and...

Research in Information Security and

Information Warfare- The economics, warfare,

policies, and technical aspects on why Information

Security is so vital

By: Aaron Varrone

[email protected]

CIS 675 Information Systems Research

Dr. Richard McCarthy

Summer 2010

Quinnipiac University

mailto:[email protected]

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ABSTRACT

These days, Information Security and Information Warfare are now looked upon as a

very important and vital concept among various military organizations. Since the

revolution of this concept in military science is viewed as a major reformation regarding

the technology utilized; military leaders believe that this technology and more

specifically, the information: gives an advantage in military training, strategy, tactics, and

organization, leaving no reason to believe otherwise on how technology impacts a

nation‟s army. In this research paper, we will examine a deeper understanding of

Information Security and Information Warfare; the economics, warfare, features, policies,

and even some common technical aspects on why Information Security is so vital to one,

to an organization, to a nation.

KEYWORDS:

Information Security

Information Warfare

Vulnerabilities

Malicious

Attacker


INTRODUCTION

Today, in almost any publication you read or discussion that you participate in, one can

read or hear the phrases containing the word “information” and “security”. Almost

everything these days have become of information character: processes, objects, and

occurrences, where we encounter such terms as information technologies (IT),

information environment, sphere and space, information support, information weapons

and equipment, electronic and information warfare. The term “security” is used so

widely that everyone in the world wants to have security, but there‟s one ramification

with this, as security is something that you don‟t realize its working until it fails, when

it‟s too late and the vulnerability has already transpired to you or to a nation. After all,

security is something that occurs between your ears, not something you hold in your

hands –Jeff Cooper.

In this research paper, the concepts of information security and information warfare are

described. After the reader understands these concepts and the history behind them, we

compare nations: the United States and China to be specific, to give us a better

understanding of how both nations handle information with completely different

prespectives and approaches. Afterall, these two countries are very different from each

other. Lastly, the paper is concluded with common technical aspects and even future

considerations that one looks for in this field to protect the confidentiality, intergrity, and

availaibility of one‟s data and information.


REVIEW OF LITERATURE

What is “Information”?

Scientists today define information as a fundamental uniform and eternal legal process,

involving the: relation, interaction, inter-preservation, and transmutation of energy,

movement, mass, and anti-mass on the basis of materialization and dematerialization in

micro and macrostructures of the Universe (Orlyanskiy, 2008). Additionally, information

is an element of the Universe around the world, the original cause, essence, source and

carrier of all phenomena and processes, all material particles and objects (Orlyanskiy,

2008).

What is “Information Security”?

Information security is defined as protecting information and information systems from

unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to

provide: integrity- guarding against improper information, confidentiality- preserving

authorized restrictions on access and disclosure, and availability- ensuring timely and

reliable access to and use of information (United States Code: Title 44,3542, 2009). In

other words, information can render certain influences upon individual people or targeted

populations, therefore the effectiveness of this information is essential for one to secure.

What is “Information Warfare”?

In today‟s digital age, it is quite difficult to control the flow of others‟ data via the World

Wide Web. Control of such information can have substantial effects on an organization,

a military organization, or a government. While outright attacks against physical and


informational assets via the World Wide Web are extremely difficult to perform, there

continues to be a risk associated with anything that has a connection to the internet. As

technology and the web continue to grow, so does the exposure of more harm being done

on one‟s data and information. Although engaging in war with tangible effects via the

Internet is extremely difficult; individuals, organizations, and governments are constantly

attempting ways to devise and facilitate electronic conquest, where data and information

is compromised (Cassidy, 2009).

Princeton defines information warfare as information or information technology during a

time of crisis or conflict to achieve or promote specific objectives over a specific

adversary or adversaries (Princeton WordNet, 2010). In other words, Information

warfare is viewed upon as “actions” taken to affect enemy information and information

systems, while defending their own information and information systems. The term was

coined in China in 1985 by Shen Weiguang, a leading Chinese war theorist (Migunov,

2008).

Information has always played a supporting role where it can be of vital importance only

under other equal or comparable conditions, such as availability of weapons and troops,

and their possession by contending parties capable of applying them in an armed struggle.

The most powerful and precise weapons are based off of the information about enemy

target locations and about their own capabilities and prospective opportunities, in

addition to other conditions necessary to be taken into account for.


The figure below represents a general structure of parties involved in an Information

Warfare.

(Orlyanskiy, 2008)

With a heavy demand placed in recent years on investing into technology, the concept of

electronic and information warfare has been brought to military leaders all around the

globe where the focus of this technology is integrating with a military organization‟s

weapon system and equipment, globalization of information command and control

systems, and more comprehensive computerization tools (Shuntenko, 2008). Technology

has not only change the nature of warfare, however also shifts warfare into the

information and intelligence realm, which requires a new outlook at war.


Electronic and information warfare is a concept that was looked upon at a certain stage in

the development of weapons and military equipment, following the broad application of

discoveries and achievements in electronics in command and control systems. Radio

communications were not the only means of command and control, however a diversity

of other various electronic systems have become a vital part of many types of weapon

systems. The components of electronic and information warfare are as follows:

electronic intelligence, including radio communications, signals intelligence, thermal (IR)

intelligence, TV communications intelligence, laser intelligence, acoustic intelligence,

and radar intelligence, which is conducted by searching, detecting, and intercepting

various electronic emissions by analyzing radars‟ technical parameters and coordinates.

This type of intelligence is not only used to locate enemies and identify their intentions,

however also to prepare data and obtain essential electronic and information warfare that

the enemy may have (Shuntenko, 2008).

Information warfare is steered through the mass media, which ensures the delivery of the

information of each contending party to the selected targets. Such as, information

superiority can be treated as a more effective influence through information. In order for

one to gain an advantage, additional qualitative information is required as well as more

perfect ways of its delivery which is associated with the development of global

communication systems. Such as today, lots of countries are using the Internet with a

view of conducting information warfare. Hence the reason why American experts are

working in the field of informational and psychological influence with having certain

operative experience in computer networks of the enemy (Orlyanskiy, 2008).


The US Military Impact on Information Warfare

The United States Military policy is designed to achieve information superiority over the

enemy by manipulating applications of hi-tech mobilization and equipment systems

supported by a diversified infrastructure of: command, communication, management, and

intelligence systems, through the use of a large range of high accuracy weapons intended

to destroy specific targets (Migunov, 2008). America‟s primary goal is to destroy their

enemy‟s army control capabilities while maintaining information warfare-related actions

to support additional dynamic weapons. American military leaders are mainly focusing

on outperforming the enemy by staying inside its decision-making mechanism in which

they retain key information and not let anybody else know of this information that they

may have on somebody else.

Incident with a US Reconnaissance Aircraft

In the spring of 2001, an incident with a US reconnaissance aircraft occurred in Taiwan,

where the Americans showed their incapability to battle with an aggressive Chinese

information policy. China outplayed the USA strategically as their hackers attacked

various US Defense Department systems during the crisis, making the national

information security system of the U.S. to be extremely slow because of the attacks.

During this time as a result of the information warfare concept development, the term

“informatization war” appeared in China‟s military scientific press, defining the term as

the battlefield of seeking information by military forces with “information weapons” as

the main warfare device. These information weapons include devices and tools to cause

maximum losses to the opposing side during the information warfare by making

hazardous information impacts. Target areas include: information and technical systems,


manned information and technical systems, information and analytical systems, manned

information and analytical systems, information resources, public consciousness and

opinion formation systems based from mass media devices, and lastly human mentality,

such as psychological approaches (Migunov, 2008). Since then, America has

dramatically improved their information infrastructure by using the latest and greatest

technology: such as advanced encryption, security as a service-which we will discuss

later, advance network and malware defense programs, and advanced firewall and

intrusion-prevention technology.

A Different Approach to Information Warfare- China

China‟s information warfare theory was strongly influenced by Chinese military art

where the Chinese system of views on information warfare include unique images about

the war as a whole, which are based on the modern “People‟s War” concept, on thirty-six

schemes introduced by the great Sun Tzu, who will be introduced in the next paragraph,

on how to maintain war on operative, strategic, and tactical levels (Migunov, 2008). The

main theory behind this concept was focused on deceiving the opponent by receiving

confidential information, while searching for asymmetric advantages over the enemy.

Chinese experts speculative methodology to information warfare was based on the

advances of the ancient Chinese war strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu, who was one of

the very first to generalize the experience of information impact on the enemy. In Tzu‟s

exposition, “Iskusstvo voiny”, which translates in English to “The Art of War”, he wrote

the following:

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“In any war, as a rule, the best policy would involve the capture of a complete state for it

is much easier to destroy it. It is better to capture the adversary’s army rather than to

destroy it… It is not the top of art to gain one hundred victories in battles. To capture

the adversary without a battle—this is the crown of art.” (Migunov, 2008)

In this elucidation, Tzu explains the importance of having access to vital information

regarding the enemies and the importance of retaining disinformation techniques in order

to manipulate the enemy‟s state and actions. Tzu concluded, “If I show the adversary

some form, but I don’t possess this form, I will keep the integrity, but the adversary will

be divided into pieces.” (Migunov, 2008)

Behind the Information Warfare Concept

Today‟s information warfare concept started to develop in China in the late 1980s, where

information warfare was understood as the actions of political, economic, cultural, and

technological; designed to capture global information while creating a protective

information border around the country. Chinese theorists also include that the basic

elements of this concept consist of the following: theoretical intimidation, confrontation

of information potentials, competition of information strategies, army information

enhancements such as artificial intelligence, economic information aggression, cultural

information aggression, information war of minds, and psychology (Migunov, 2008).

A Breakdown of Information Warfare

Information warfare can be subdivided into „information-technical‟ and „information-

psychological„ wars. In an information-technical war, it is the information technology

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systems, such as: communication systems, telecommunication systems, and radio-

electronic devices that are the main target areas. In an information-psychological war the

main targets are the mentalities of the political leaders and the population of the opposing

sides, such as public opinion formation systems and decision-making mechanisms.

Nowadays, China possesses a very powerful state-organized information warfare system

which allows Chinese authorities to apply forces and facilities when and where necessary.

The core of the system includes the network of Research Bureaus at the State Council of

the People‟s Republic of China and the System Analytical Center of the State Security

Ministry (Migunov, 2008).

The figure below represents an organizational view of how the Chinese Special Services

operate in an information warfare system.

(Migunov, 2008)

Concluding Information Warfare

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In China, information warfare is viewed as a transition from the mechanical war of the

industrial society to the war of solutions and style of management, and the war of

knowledge and intelligence. To achieve this transition, the country is now developing the

concept of network forces, which are military divisions numbering up to a battalion

manpowered with high quality computer experts trained in state universities and

educational centers, where the main goal is to attract the active youth, from among

Internet users, as China is currently the biggest country among Internet users in the world

ahead of America with approximately 298 million people (CIA- The World Factbook,

2008).

Technical Aspects of Common Information Security Vulnerabilities

In this section, various technical aspects of common information security vulnerabilities

are examined. In today‟s world there could obviously be pages and pages, and even

books written on these technical aspects. Therefore, this paper will examine the most

common and prone attack methods.

Several Layers at Which Attacks can occur

First, let‟s examine the various layers at which attacks can occur:

Physical

Since most hostility is based off of using communication technology as a means of an

attack, aimed at physical assets of the target, such as: computer equipment, electronics, or

power generators; the physical layer represents only part of how a potential victim can be

attacked (Cassidy, 2009).

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Syntactic & Semantic

Syntactic and Semantic demonstrates how an attacker doesn‟t have to demolish physical

assets when they can achieve the goals of warfare by feeding their enemy faulty

information (Cassidy, 2009). Hence the reason why reliable information is so vital for

good decision making for one. Without reliable information, poor logistical decisions are

realized.

Attack Modeling for Information Security & Survivability

Many system and programmer engineers rely on data failure to improve their design,

however the majority of the time, this is not the case as many in the field do not use data

that is compromised as a way to improve the security and sustainability of systems they

develop. A big reason on why they don‟t is because historically speaking, business and

governments have been reluctant to disclose information about an attack on their system

for the fear of public awareness and confidence; additionally organizations may fear that

other attackers would exploit the same or similar type of vulnerability in the future.

(Moore, Ellison, & Linger, 2001)

Although organizations have been reluctant to disclose such information on their systems,

data that has been compromised has become more widely available over the past decade.

Main reasons for this includes media coverage and public interest awareness on the

Internet, and non-profit organizations forming to help protect government and business

information systems free from internet-based attacks. For instance, organizations such as

the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) which was formed in 1988 by the

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National Security Agency (NSA) to help combat the risk of threats that may come into an

organization‟s or government agency‟s information system (Schneider, 2010).

Common Types of Attacks

There are many ways to deliberately access confidential and restricted information and

data from a system. Therefore, an attack pattern is looked upon and examined to further

understand the following:

The overall goal of the attack

Every hacker (attacker) has an initiative in mind and goal for committing an attack.

Whether it‟s an act to gain money and sell important data and information or a malicious

attempt to do harm to another, there‟s always a rationale behind the attack.

A list of preconditions of the attack

Preconditions include assumptions that are made about the attacker or the state of the

organization that are necessary for an attack to be successful, such as: the access,

knowledge, resources, and skills that the attacker must possess in order to carry out the

attack.

The steps for carrying out the attack

An attack does not just happen. There are steps to every attack. The first and last step

will always be the most generic and non technical to even in some cases where an

elementary student can understand, such as how the attacker received such access to the

system (first step) and how the attacker left the system (last step), with the very technical

and most difficult steps being thrown in the middle.

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A list of post conditions of the attack

Post conditions include knowledge gained by the attacker and changes (if there were any)

which were made to the organization‟s system.


Buffer Overflow Attack

A Buffer Overflow Attack is one way for an attacker to exploit malicious code onto a

system. Buffer overflow occurs when a process or program tries to store more data in a

buffer, which is a temporary place for storage, than it was intended to hold. Buffers are

created with a restricted set amount of data, when extra information is stored in this

restricted set amount, the data has to go somewhere which can lead to overflowing,

corruption, and or even overwriting the valid data that is stored. While overflowing can

occur through a programming error, the primary source of an overflow is usually caused

from a type of security attack on data integrity. In this type of attack, the extra data

usually contains malicious code designed to trigger specific actions, such as changing

configurations and disclosing confidential information. Most experts agree that Buffer

overflow attacks have arisen in recent years because of poor programming practices

(SearchSecurity.com Definitions, 2007).

Goal: The primary goal of a Buffer Overflow Attack is to exploit a program‟s

vulnerability by performing a type of malicious activity on a targeted system.

Precondition: The attacker can execute certain processes and programs on the system

Attack: The attack consists of the following:

1) Identify executable programs on the system that is susceptible to this type of

vulnerability

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2) Identify the code that will perform the malicious activity when it executes with

program‟s privileges

3) Construct the input value that will force the code to be in the program‟s address

space

4) Executes the program and behaves in a way the malicious code was

instructionally written to do

Post condition: The targeted system executes the malicious function.


Below is a flowchart representing how a Buffer Overflow Attack is carried out.


Exploiting the Buffer

When a buffer overflow occurs, the memory typically causes the targeted application to

crash because it does not know how to handle the extra data. However in an attack; an

attack can manipulate the buffer overflow in such a way where they can create their own

system commands by converting them to very low-level byte code, and send them to the

program in a proper format where they can be executed. At this point, the code that is

executed is complied under the context of the user‟s original vulnerable application

which means that if the program is run by a system administrator, the injected code can

also run under the same privileges as the system administrator (Sanders, 2009).

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Depending on the size of the buffer, the attacker can inject various types of codes to carry

out malicious activities. The most common type of injection is a known as shellcode,

where a user has the ability to take complete control over the system. An example of a

shellcode attack in a Microsoft Windows system written in C and Assembly languages is

shown below.

(Sanders, 2009)

Preventing Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities

The best way to prevent the exploitation of a buffer overflow vulnerability is for

programmers to review their code ensuring the code is indeed secure. One caveat with

this is that reviewing line after line of code requires a significant amount of man hours to

maintain the integrity of the program code.

Fortunately for programmers and users, there are other ways to combat this type of attack.

Such as Microsoft‟s widely known feature in their operating systems known as Data

Execution Prevention (DEP), which is a security attribute to prevent an application from

executing code in a non-executable area of memory. DEP can be configured both in

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hardware-based devices and software-based devices (Sanders, 2009). The figure below

represents a software-based DEP configuration.

(Sanders, 2009)

The figure below represents the results of when DEP automatically detects the execution

of code from a non-executable area and blocks the code from carrying out its intended

task.

(Sanders, 2009)

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Unexpected Operator Attack

The Buffer Overflow Attack is one way for an attacker to exploit malicious content

without intent and user input from a user. An example of a more general class of attacks

are referred to as Input Validation Attacks, where perhaps if the application required

validated user input, perhaps the program wouldn‟t be vulnerable to the attack. Similar to

a Buffer Overflow Attack and considered to be in the same class, is the Unexpected

Operator Attack which is when an unforeseen exploit attack occurs where the attacker

can execute various types of malicious functions. As oppose to being vulnerable to

excessively long input values, programs susceptible to the unexpected operator

vulnerability do not expect that certain operators will be included in the input. For

instance, an application can expect that a file name will be passed as input, therefore that

application can use the data contained in the file for some purpose. The vulnerability in

this application is exploited when an attacker attaches the input file name with a

command composition operator and a malicious command (Moore, Ellison, & Linger,

2001).

Goal: The primary goal of this attack is to find unexpected operator vulnerabilities so that

malicious functions can take place.

Precondition: Attacker executes certain applications on the target system.


1. Identify executable applications the target system vulnerable and prone to the

unexpected operator vulnerability

2. Identify unexpected operator that allows composing system calls

3. Identify system calls that would perform malicious function when executed with

application‟s elevated privileges

4. Create unexpected input by composing legal input value with system call

commands using the unexpected operator

5. Execute application on the target system with unexpected input

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Post condition: Target system executes the malicious function.


The figure below represents an Unexpected Operator attack. “Program P” is the

application that is prone to this attack.


Other Common Attack Patterns

Attack patterns exists at a variety of levels and do not automatically lead to a direct

compromise of information or denial of service. Attacks may simply provide the attacker

with information that they need in order to achieve a goal. Such as, finding out the

access controls that are enforced by a firewall, which is essential information because

once control is taken over the firewall, it makes it that much easier to access one‟s data

and information. This is known as an Access Control Discovery and IP Address

Discovery attack (Moore, Ellison, & Linger, 2001).

Access Control Discovery and IP Address Discovery Attack

Goal: The primary goal of this attack is to identify firewall access controls.

Precondition: Attacker must know the firewall IP address


1. Search for specific default listening ports

2. Scan all ports across the network for any listening ports

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3. Scan ports stealthily for listening ports

OR

1. Randomize the scan on the target

2. Randomize the scan of the source

3. Scan without touching the targeted host

Post condition: Attacker knows firewall access controls


The figure below diagrams an attacker in “Internet Land” accessing a system behind an

organization‟s (The Org Enclave) firewall.


Attack Trees

Very intelligent attackers will attempt to exploit every vulnerability in every application

known to man by retaining an attack library that provides a set of attack profiles to be

initiated on their target systems. This is why it‟s imperative for developers, system, and

security engineers to examine an attack tree, which is basically a flowchart representing if

an attack goes through or not. Once vulnerabilities are found; the developer, system,

and/or security engineer can go back and apply patches to where these exposures

occurred (Moore, Ellison, & Linger, 2001).

The figure below represents an attack tree process.

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TODAY & THE NEAR FUTURE- VIRTURALIZATION SECURITY

Much of today, organizations are taking advantage of other technologies out there such as

virtualization, a wave of the future model where cloud computing and software as a

service (SaaS) concepts are widely utilized. Cloud computing is defined as services and

applications that are stored in another location, typically a third-party provider, where

these operations take place over the internet (Sloan, 2009). Therefore, security in the

virtualized world is becoming more imperative than ever before.

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To start, common virtualization terms must be understood before discussing how to

protect these virtual systems:

Hypervisor- This is how virtualization is made possible. Hypervisor provides the

abstraction layer between the real system and the virtual one in which an operating

system software maps out to a “virtual” processor, memory, storage, input/output, such as

a network, to the real processor, memory, storage, input/out of the system.

Virtualization- Virtualization is the process of abstracting computer applications, services,

and operating systems from the hardware on which they run onto a virtual machine image

which is installed on a guest operating system however is running from a host operating

system.

Host operating system- Is the operating system that is running an instance of a virtual

machine.

Guest operating system- Is the actual virtual image of the operating system that is

installed and running on the host operating system.

Virtual Machine Image (VMI)- Is a pre-built copy of memory and storage contents of a

particular machine which contains the host operating system.

Security layer- Security functions embedded within the hypervisor layers that provide

common service to all VMs on the hardware platform which are logically isolated from

the guest operating system.

Security as a Service- a utility-based security service that connects to all security layers

of a cloud. In addition, one or more operation centers are attached to the cloud.

(Sloan, 2009)

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Security architecture in a Virtual World

Firewalls: In a virtual world, firewalls are likely to be delivered as a VMI, running in its

own processing compartment. There could be room for a traditional hardware firewall at

the base of each datacenter cabinet to regulate flow into and out of the cabinet as well as

the outside boundaries of each cloud in which these firewalls become linked in a grid

with a dedicated out of band firewall management channel. This allows virtual

compartments for customer distributed-processing services and traffic segregation where

each processing stack becomes a repeatable unit of the architecture.

Intrusion Detection & Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS): IDS/IPS can be incorporated into

software applications in the security layer utilizing features such as: full traffic analysis,

attack detection, and response control capability.

(Sloan, 2009)

A virtualized environment allows for various and unique possibilities for prevention

responses, such as closing an attacked VM in three ways:

1) The original minus the attack traffic, which allows business to continue.

2) A forensic image to allow the attack to be investigated.

3) A honeypot to retain and divert the interest of the attack in which fake data is

substituted for real data.

(Sloan, 2009)

Anti-Virus (AV): Anti-Virus has always run in context with the computer allowing for the

possibility of malicious code to disable AV protection and prevent possible remediation

or removal of the malicious code. Therefore in a virtual world, more and more Anti-

Virus vendors are relying on Cloud Computing scanning, where scheduled and real-time

scans are initiated from another virtual machine.

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Encryption: The problem of providing affordable protection for private encryption keys

was resolved by adding a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to the operating system

architecture allowing universal, end-to-end data protection in PC networks by the use of

Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) and Asymmetric Key Cryptography (AKC). Cloud

computing cannot break the model to require the transport of keys around the network,

however the TPM can deliberately be used to provide trust connections from connection

to connection. Therefore, allowing this to be adopted in a cloud model and allowing

establishments of virtual private networks (VPN) to protect data on the fly.

Patch Management: With cloud computing, it‟s possible to simplify the problem of patch

management. Many platform level patches can be applied to all images currently running,

however by including a patch management service within the management or security

layers, it‟s possible to push the patches out automatically. Additionally, it is also possible

to clone the individual environment first and test the patch before it ever goes live.

Additional Security Services: Additional potential security services that could be added

to the security layer and be delivered as Security as a Service include offload

functionality and complexity from business applications, such as the use of Application

Programming Interface (API), which allows functions to be accessed by other

applications. Other services may include: proxy services, such as web content, URL, and

SPAM filtering, user registration, authentication, authorization, password management,

and secure single-sign on systems. (Sloan, 2009)

This figure below represents how security would take place in a cloud computing

environment:

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(Sloan, 2009)

METHODOLOGY

The methodology used during this research includes an observation method for gathering

data and factual information. For instance: examining case studies done between China

and the United States, scientists definition and theories behind the concept of information,

experts definition and theories behind the concept of information warfare, technical

components such as common attack patterns, and the future of information security-

virtualization.

RESULTS

The results were analyzed by the following:

1. Information gathered by the observation method were collected and reviewed

2. This data was coded with the following themes: the concept and definition of

information, the concept and definition of Information Security, the concept and

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definition of Information Warfare, the United States perspective of Information

Warfare, China‟s perspective of Information Warfare, technical aspects of

common information security vulnerabilities- such as attack models and common

attacks, lastly the future of information security- virtualization.

3. These themes were layered and interconnected to the following:

Information Security and Information Warfare

The concepts of what information warfare means to two different nations

Technical Aspects of Information Security Vulnerabilities

4. Once these themes were identified and grouped accordingly, the presentation of

findings were established

5. Lastly, the themes were supported by multiple sources and reviewed

CONCLUSION

Information is everywhere. As scientists would describe, almost everything these days

have become of information character: objects, occurrences, and processes. After all,

information is the knowledge required in order to accomplish a certain task. Hence the

reason why securing of this information is so essential, especially for organizations,

military organizations, and nations. With this said, a whole new perspective of

information security is examined, information warfare. This concept which may be new

to most, has been around for approximately thirty-years and essentially has become the

future of war, where many nations and their military organizations are preparing for the

next steps in case of a war. As technical characteristics were examined more closely, this

gives us a better understanding of what attackers look for, what attackers want, and why

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they want this vital information where these days terrorism can be launched with one

click of a button.

FUTURE WORK

Future work considerations include examining under developed nations where they lack

in a fundamental economy and therefore lack in the use and innovation of technology.

Although China has a very different approach to America, many other countries in

today‟s world cannot compete with these nations technology, therefore causing these

other countries to lie, cheat, and steal their way through these other systems which may

include: bribery, theft, and intimidation, in order to maintain a strong and free-standing

nation. While these countries cannot develop and utilized high accuracy weapons of

mass destruction, they indeed can still stay in the game by performing basic information

warfare notions, such as: computer network attacks, information and economic operations,

high precision impacts, and directed actions; which can lead to a national security

advantage, economic advantage, financial benefits, policy and political influence which

all of these can be considered by most experts as instruments capable of increasing a

nation‟s power.

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REFERENCES

SearchSecurity.com Definitions. (2007, June). Retrieved August 2, 2010, from

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