June 6, 2011

Wait, Hacking Constitutes War?

It's a no brainer, but when I was reading an article regarding Lulzsec, the reputable website made the claim that the US Government is now considering hacking an act of war. Before we point the finger at China, let me be clear on what the Pentagon means. If any cyberattack were to be considered an act of war, we have a couple of million reasons, a day, to declare war on a country. It would seem militaristic, but someone from the Pentagon put it a very simple way:

Hack our power grid and you are looking at military retaliation.

The attack has to be large enough in scale that it:

1) Kills people
2) Disrupts the Economy
3) Disrupts Military

in order for the US government to act on it. At first, I said "no duh?", but I do agree. It is the same thing with weapons in space- disrupt a US satelite and it is an act of war. The US government has woken up not too long ago on the issue of cyber security- investing billions in cyber-infrastructure. In the early to mid 2000's, we could point the finger at them and claim they were ignoring security. Now they are more serious than before.

In this dirty game of cyber warfare, The United States is putting the Chutzpah out there: Don't mess with us.

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