Just outside the small town of Rheinbach, the German army has begun preparations for a new kind of war. Close on the heels of attacks against the Internet infrastructure of Estonia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, as well as a large scale hacking attack by China against a number of European countries, the German army, or Bundeswehr, has established its first offcial unit dedicated solely to cyber war. According to a new article in Der Spiegel, the unit is still considered secret, and will work on both defensive and offensive operations.

Cyber attacks are not new - websites were being hacked into and brought down during the Kosovo war 10 years ago. According to Scott Borg, Director and Chief Economist of the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit founded by the US government that now independently consults with the government and businesses, about a dozen countries have developed cyber war capabilities.

“Other than Britain and France, European countries have not been very out front about their war-making capabilities,Since Germany is very careful about these things, the fact that they actually announced that they’re doing it may mean it’s not as everyday as it seems.”

Fact 1: In the last few years, the number of intrusion attempts on US Department of Defense computers has grown to over 500 a day

Nations on for Cyber Warfare:

With the Russian cyber attack that took out Estonia’s banking, government ministries and Internet for several days in 2007, the wired world joined the land, sea and air as a standard battlefield in modern war.

After the 2007 Estonia incident, Russians launched cyber attacks against Georgia during their 2008 war, and then took down the Internet of Kyrgyzstan on January 18th of this year. This is when NATO alliance realised it needed a proper cyber defence policy and fast. Suleyman Anil, a Turkish IT expert from the Nato Security Office is the man driving much of that policy.

Since 2007, cyber attacks have been used in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, between Indian and Pakistan, and between China and Taiwan and Japan.

E-mail attachments with sophisticated “worm” or “trojan” can, in theory, take over their computer, scan its files, send them on, delete them, or perhaps most damagingly, alter them without the user knowing.

What Germans think:

The impetus for creating this unit came from a spate of recent cyber attacks against Germany. In 2007, attempts by Chinese hackers to conduct industrial espionage against Germany became so bad that during a state visit to Germany, German chancellor Angela Merkel publicly asked Chinese officials to stop. Additionally, Germany has engaged in some spats over gas pipelines with Russia, a country that has launched cyber attacks every year since 2007.

So is cyber warfare the future of warfare?

The current answer is : Yes, it will be a factor within any future conflict.

Bookmark this article