Cyber War, Third World War

The third world war seems to have already started in the cyber space.

Depending the nations and their major infra structures on the information networks, `terrorism` through cyber space such as hackings and virus attacks stimulates the international conflicts. The offensive and defensive battles between the China and the US hackers after the crash of the US spy plane with Chinese fighter is a typical example.

Suh Jung-Beom, CEO of the US security company Defense Korea, remarks, ``This battles among the hackers is just a sample of upcoming wars in the future.`` Experts are worried about the fact that the cyber attacks can be operated not only by a particular nation’s army but also by individuals who target a common enemy. It has been pointed that, by utilizing hacking programs and viruses spread in the cyber space, every single laptop computer can be an individual weapon armed with awful power.

Many countries have already prepared for the futuristic war, which destroys the enemy’s system by spreading viruses through the internet and military networks. Lee Kwang-Hyeong, professor of KAIST, suggested the building of hacker’s army for the first time in Korea. Prof. Lee suggested that Korea had to build 5000 hackers in 1997. But now He said, ``Now, it is necessary to build ten times more security experts than those needed in 1997.`` The concept of cyber war is of course totally different from that of the traditional war. Compared to the physical destructions and mass murders of the traditional war, the cyber war focuses on the incapacitation of the enemy’s economic and military power by attacking the national administrative processing system, major military system, and banking systems. Computer virus targets the software of enemies. The virus can hide itself and stay in the enemy’s system and attack its target at a particular time like a time bomb.

Recently, Autonomous Mobile Cyber Weapon (AMCW) has been developed to attack specific targets in the network. The US’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, is developing an `electronic bomb.` This briefcase sized bomb is aiming to wipe out all the data in the computer network by superpowered electromagnetic waves. Hacking stands at the center of cyber war. Hackers invade into the enemy’s networks to destroy programs. They could also put some distorted information in the networks to disturb the enemy’s operations. Kim Kang-Ho, CEO of Cyzentech, emphasizes that, to block and defeat the enemy’s cyber attack, more hackers need to be trained.

Wave disturbance is a representative hardware weapon to the cyber space. When designing a system hardware, the manufacturer could intentionally build a specific code to utilize, to intrude and to destroy the enemy’s system when it is necessary.

Park Jung-Hyeon, team director of Korean Security Information Agency, pointed out that a strong security system on a state level has to be introduced. ``Once these cyber technology is used by criminal organizations or terrorist groups, social disturbance will be devastating,`` He said.

The US drew up a budget for the establishment of cyber war defense system as much as 625 million dollars in 1998 and 3.01 billion dollars this year. `Red team,` security expert team of the Ministry of Defense, is monitoring the security of major computer communication systems. Detecting a signal of danger, the team signals an alarm and related information to the intelligent agencies.

China is also know to operate a computer virus unit in the People’s Liberation Army. Russia is preparing a intelligent war by using viruses after the Gulf war. Japan has moved on with the policy to protect the ground of info-technology on the one hand and to develop preventive measures against the potential cyber terrorism.

Korean government has also been preparing for cyber war. However, it has been pointed out that the security measures of electric networks in public area and social infra- structures need to be improved significantly. The Ministry of Information and Communication is introducing a information and communication security law in July this year to improve the security of 300 major infra structures. The Ministry is also planning to support civic institutions and hacker circles to encourage the cultivation of qualified human resources.

freewill@donga.com