Relax hackers! NATO has no cyber-attack plans - top brass

NATO does NOT need cyber-offensive capabilities, according to a senior military commander. Major General Jaap Willemse, who was speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon), said launching barrages of computer-based attacks is off the agenda for the Western military alliance, at least for the immediate …

[Christoph]

And other objections

"There are huge political, legal and diplomatic objections,"

They hadn't noticed that there are also huge technical objections?

[Thomas 18]

NATO may not but the US gov certainly is [1]

Also, the skill set to analyse defensive weaknesses in your infrastructure and simulate cyber attacks is pretty much exactly the same skill set as to launch them at other people.

[1] Stuxnet. United States and Israel (2010).

[beardman]

uhm...

what NATO centre of cyber excellence is doing then in Estonia? just watching the wire?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, we have no....

... guns, bombs, ships, planes...

There - that's lulled the enemy into a false sense of security. That will give us time to procure cyber-warfare capability, guns, ships, bombs, planes...

[ukgnome]

Who needs a cyber security force?

It only takes one person to locate the perpetrator of a computer misdeed and let the laser guided missiles do the reset.

[Alan Brown]

Laser guided missiles?

All you need is a ballistically delivered anvil.

[Colin Millar]

"Governments are not going to pour money into a black hole"

Is he on the same planet as the rest of us?

Ah - Dutch - yes - I understand now - too much time in the cafes in Amsterdam and probably still in that mellow "there - I've fixed all the worlds problems and invented world peace" frame of mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Governments are not going to pour money into a black hole"

Clearly this guy hasn't been anywhere near a computer or heard the phrase 'Information Warfare'. Did NATO just send the nearest officer on a jolly, or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing

They make prisons for hackers.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Well they should

"NATO does not have the doctrine, command and control, educational support or other factors needed to run an offensive capability,"

Newsflash guys - it's not 1946. Being equipped to deal with hordes of T34s streaming through the Fulda gap probably isn't enough anymore.