Chase Cunningham - Cyber Warfare

Cyber Warfare Truth, Tactics, and Strategies

Strategic concepts and truths to help you and your organization survive on the battleground of cyber warfare

Dr. Chase Cunningham

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

Cyber Warfare Truth, Tactics, and Strategies

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First published: February 2020

Production reference: 1210220

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-83921-699-2

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This book is dedicated to all those digital warriors who operate in a never-ending game of digital cat and mouse. Warriors like Shannon Kent, Blake Mclendon, and countless others who have given all while taking the fight to the enemy. May God bless those select few that are engaged with the enemy in a boundaryless battlefield. Keep up the good fight brothers and sisters!

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The last fifty years have witnessed a tremendous revolution. This revolution continues to rage all around us, threatening to redefine international borders; destroying long-cherished businesses and institutions; disrupting our social fabric and norms; challenging our privacy; and calling into question what is right and what is wrong. Often referred to as the "Information Revolution," this revolutionary technological transformation continues its relentless march around the globe.

As the Information Revolution transformed the world and the advent of the World Wide Web brought internet access into homes around the world, pundits came to adopt the "Cyber" moniker from William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer to describe the new domain of human experience. As the World Wide Web continued its expansion in the 1990s, "Cyber" soon became a prefix added to words highlighting the impact of digital technology to everyday activities. Soon, internet cafes were rebranded as "Cyber Cafes," offering internet access to those who didn't have a computer or internet access. The explosive growth of internet connectivity throughout society saw new terms like cyberspace, cyberpunks, cyberbully, cybercrime, cyberstalker, cyberporn, and other like terms added to the lexicon.

It wasn't long before this newly minted "cyber domain" became a source of potential conflict, earning the interest of the world's military powers. For example, during my Air Command and Staff College classes in 1994, I penned a monograph positing a unified cyber command and describing how cyber capabilities could be used as an instrument of national power in lieu of kinetic strikes. Such thinking was not unique in military circles.

For example, in 1999, two Chinese People's Liberation Army colonels, Qaio Liang and Wang Xiangsui, wrote a seminal book on military strategy, Unrestricted Warfare, which highlighted how China could leverage non-traditional means to attack an opponent, including leveraging attacks in the networked digital world. Not long after, in December 2005, the United States Air Force added "cyberspace" as a warfighting domain to its mission statement, highlighting the importance of cyber operations in military doctrine. With that Air Force mission statement, "Cyber Warfare" came of age.

The infamous Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, "War is politics by other means." A century later, the noted humorist and philosopher Julius "Groucho" Marx said, "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." I submit that both Clausewitz and Marx's statements apply to today's so-called "Cyber Warfare."

Sadly, we have seen too many people declaring themselves as experts in "Cyber Warfare." I contend that anyone who says they are an expert isn't. The cyber domain is vast, incorporating numerous skills and specialties. During my decades of experience in the cyber domain, I have witnessed many so-called "Cyber Experts" whose non-technical background often leads them to fall victim to superficial analyses that invariably lead to inaccurate conclusions that are often passed on as gospel to others.

Fortunately, we have those like Dr. Chase Cunningham who indeed can and should be considered a "Cyber Expert." With deep experience in cyber operations, forensics, research, and domain leadership, he understands the broad cyber domain and is able to (to paraphrase Groucho) discern what is trivial versus what is real trouble. He uses his real-life experience to diagnose it properly, and has the technical heft to apply the right remedies. In an era rife with self-declared cyber experts, Chase Cunningham is the real deal and presents this much-needed book to help the reader truly understand Cyber Warfare.

In my book, Cybersecurity for Executives: A Practical Guide, I state that cybersecurity is a risk management issue and not just a technology problem. I highlighted that people, process, and technology are all critical parts of any cybersecurity program. In this great book, Dr. Cunningham provides outstanding analysis and description of the cyber domain in a manner that even a cyber-neophyte (Yes, I note the irony of me deliberately using a cyber-prefixed word) would understand.