Reply to post: Re: What goes round, comes around

Iran is doing to our networks what it did to our spy drone, claims Uncle Sam: Now they're bombing our hard drives

Blazde Silver badge

Re: What goes round, comes around

"I'd really love to understand what logic and what compulsion drive them."

What choice do they have? Standing up in the UN and asking everyone just to be nice to each other (please)? They're playing a game that's been plainly inevitable for 30 plus years now. It didn't need any legitimising. It's the nature of cyber that direct risk for the aggressor is low, attribution is difficult, attacks can be relatively cheap, and impact relatively high. Therefore small and less technologically reliant states were always going to use it to go after more technologically states, even large ones, with impunity.

Surely the only response to this as a vulnerable state is to get your own capability, try to toughen up as much as possible, expose attacks against you, and reveal your own attacks as a deterrent. ie. If it seems like the US is most responsible for cyberwar right now it's only because it's most in their interest to publicise what's happening.

The worry should be that other Western states lack capability and so become reliant on the US, or are so asleep they're not even aware when they're under attack.

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