The former deputy chief of U.S. Cyber Command has warned of the dangers of nation-state cyber weapons in terrorist hands.
The most serious cyber warfare threats facing the West come from China and Russia, that much is undebatable, with Iran and North Korea a step or two behind. Those CRINK nation states occupy most of the strategic mindshare within the defense and intelligence agencies charged with keeping us safe. But now Lt.-Gen Vincent Stewart, former deputy chief of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, has warned that we need to urgently broaden our thinking.
Much of the cyber threat focused on military, critical infrastructure and commercial targets in the West is developed by so-called Advanced Persistent Threat groups allied with and funded by nation state agencies, but not embedded within them. We have seen these often arms-length entities double-hat their activities, conducting likely state-mandated operations while freelancing for personal gain as well.
With this in mind, Stewart has warned that if al-Qaeda or ISIS were able to purchase cyberattack capabilities or even services from such a group then swathes of critical infrastructure could be at risk. Russia and China have such capabilities, but play the balance between impact and implications—causing damage but stopping short of prompting devastating repercussions. Terror groups have no such constraints and often operate at the margins of their capabilities.
Stewart singled out power grids as a particular danger, and one can only imagine the war-gaming and theorizing around such an attack within Cyber Command during his tenure. “Losing power for an extended period of time,” he warned, “is not just about inconvenience,” with hospitals and cold supply chains at particular risk. We have seen attacks on power companies and assets from both East and West. It has become something of a frontline.
Stewart did acknowledge that Russia remains the most likely perpetrator of a broad scale attack, “viewing itself as a global power” and “Putin believing he is almost the czar.” As such, the limited deployment of cyber weapons by the U.S. was a cause for concern—an overly conservative attitude of the past. “Russia will not back off unless we stand up and show we are willing to fight back,” which presents that retaliation dilemma.
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