clydeiii/cybersecurity · Datasets at Hugging Face

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technical sophistication by some of the members," Rios said. "It also indicates
that all the information from the attacked systems was most likely already
compromised and pilfered before the injection point was posted."
While Grey Goose members could find no direct link between Russian
government officials and the StopGeorgia.ru forum administrators, they claim
it is unreasonable to conclude that no such connection exists.
"The historical record shows clear support by members of the Russian
government and implied consent in its refusal to intervene or stop the hacker
attacks," the report states, naming at least three Russian politicians and
military officials who have previously endorsed coordinated cyber attacks
against other nations as a show of nationalistic pride.
Oleg Gordievsky, a former colonel in the Russian KGB who defected to the
British intelligence wing MI6 in 1985, spoke in 1998 at an international
conference on crime and discussed how Russian hackers convicted of cyber
crime are sometimes offered an alternative to prison -- working for the FSB"
(the federal security service of the Russian Federation and a successor to the
KGB).
According to a cyber warfare analysis by researchers at Dartmouth College,
Moscow has a track record of offensive hacking into Chechen Web sites. The
researchers provide this account of incidents in 2002, when Russian hackers
used cyber warfare in to supplement the ongoing military conflict with
Chechnya.
"In 2002, Chechen rebels claimed that two of their Web sites, kavkaz.org and
chechenpress.com, crashed under hack attacks by the Russian FSB security
service. The website crashes were reportedly timed to occur concurrently or
shortly after Russian Special Forces troops stormed the Moscow Theater in
which the rebels had taken hostages. "On October 26 ... our Web Site
kavkaz.org was attacked by a group of hackers," said a spokesman for the
Chechen rebel site run by Movladi Udugov. Following the attack on the site,
which is based in the United States, Udugov said that he was "amazed Russia's
special services can operate so freely on U.S. territory." The attacks on one
site, chechenpress.com, fell under the category of brute-force denial of
service (DoS) attacks, while on the other site, kavkaz.org, the attacks
appeared much more sophisticated.
According to Chechen sources, the Web site was hijacked by hackers from
the FSB. The FSB hackers reportedly accomplished this by changing the
domain registration of the site and then eliminating the data for the site from
the hosting server. Upon learning of these attacks, the rebels moved the
information on the sites to kavkazcenter.com. However, that site was
attacked just a week later, also apparently the work of FSB hackers.
In July, Russian hackers were blamed for a similar assault on Lithuanian
government Web sites. In Security Fix's account of that attack, I posted a
copy of a congratulatory letter sent to nationalist Russian hackers by Nikolai
Kuryanovich, a former member of the Russian Duma. The missive is dated
March 2006, and addresses the hacker group Slavic Union after the group
had just completed a series of successful attacks against Israeli Web sites.
"In the very near future many conflicts will not take place on the open field of
battle, but rather in spaces on the Internet, fought with the aid of information
soldiers, that is hackers," Kuryanovich wrote. "This means that a small force of
hackers is stronger than the multi-thousand force of the current armed
forces."
The Grey Goose report concludes that the journeyman-apprentice
relationship observed in the StopGeorgia forum will continue to be the
training model used by nationalistic Russian hackers, and that those hackers
are actively engaged in finding more efficient ways to disable networks.
In the meantime, Carr said, the Russian government will continue to deny any
involvement in any nation-level cyber attacks.
"The Russian government has adopted this hands-off and satisfying position of
deniability while enjoying the rewards achieved by the Russian hacker
community," Carr said.
Culture Mandala, Vol. 8, No. 1, October 2008, pp.28-80
Copyright
2008 Jason Fritz
HOW CHINA WILL USE CYBER WARFARE
TO LEAPFROG IN MILITARY COMPETITIVENESS
byJason Fritz BS (St. Cloud), MIR (Bond)
Introduction
The People
s Republic of China (PRC) may be a global power economically but its military lacks force projection
beyond the Asia Pacific region. Its traditional military hardware is one to three generations behind the US and
Russia. In light of these deficiencies it is probable that cyber warfare will provide China with an asymmetric
advantage to deter aggression from stronger military powers as they catch up in traditional military capabilities.
Cyber warfare would also allow China to leapfrog by means of technology transfer and exploiting adversary
weaknesses. This investigation will address three primaryquestions: What is China
s current militarycapability?
How would cyber warfare allow China to seriously advance its strategic abilities? And what is the evidence that
China is headed in a cyber warfare direction?
1. Traditional Military Power of the PLA
In order to see how the Chinese military will
leapfrog
in military competitiveness, it is
necessary to establish its current capabilities. The Chinese People
s Liberation Army (PLA)
is composed of five main service branches, the PLA Ground Force, PLA Navy, PLA Air
Force, Second Artillery Corps, and the PLA Reserved Force. China has one of the world
largest military forces, with 2.3 million active members, a reserve force of 800,000, and a
paramilitary force of 3.9 million, for a grand total of approximately 7 million members. The
PLA has tried to transform itself from a land based power, to a smaller, mobile, high tech
power that is capable of reaching beyond its borders (Annual Report to Congress 2007;
China's National Defense in 2006).
During the 1980
s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping pushed for quality over quantity, and the
military was reduced by one million members. In 1993, President Jiang Zemin officially
announced a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) a part of the national military strategy for
modernization. RMA is a theory about the future of warfare, often connected to
technological and organizational recommendations for change in the United States military
and others. RMA is tied to modern information, communications, space technology, and
total systems integration. Careful observation of US involvement in the Kosovo,
Afghanistan, and Iraqi wars, furthered China
s interest in network-centric warfare and

technical sophistication by some of the members," Rios said. "It also indicates

that all the information from the attacked systems was most likely already

compromised and pilfered before the injection point was posted."

While Grey Goose members could find no direct link between Russian

government officials and the StopGeorgia.ru forum administrators, they claim

it is unreasonable to conclude that no such connection exists.

"The historical record shows clear support by members of the Russian

government and implied consent in its refusal to intervene or stop the hacker

attacks," the report states, naming at least three Russian politicians and

military officials who have previously endorsed coordinated cyber attacks

against other nations as a show of nationalistic pride.

Oleg Gordievsky, a former colonel in the Russian KGB who defected to the

British intelligence wing MI6 in 1985, spoke in 1998 at an international

conference on crime and discussed how Russian hackers convicted of cyber

crime are sometimes offered an alternative to prison -- working for the FSB"

(the federal security service of the Russian Federation and a successor to the

KGB).

According to a cyber warfare analysis by researchers at Dartmouth College,

Moscow has a track record of offensive hacking into Chechen Web sites. The

researchers provide this account of incidents in 2002, when Russian hackers

used cyber warfare in to supplement the ongoing military conflict with

Chechnya.

"In 2002, Chechen rebels claimed that two of their Web sites, kavkaz.org and

chechenpress.com, crashed under hack attacks by the Russian FSB security

service. The website crashes were reportedly timed to occur concurrently or

shortly after Russian Special Forces troops stormed the Moscow Theater in

which the rebels had taken hostages. "On October 26 ... our Web Site

kavkaz.org was attacked by a group of hackers," said a spokesman for the

Chechen rebel site run by Movladi Udugov. Following the attack on the site,

which is based in the United States, Udugov said that he was "amazed Russia's

special services can operate so freely on U.S. territory." The attacks on one

site, chechenpress.com, fell under the category of brute-force denial of

service (DoS) attacks, while on the other site, kavkaz.org, the attacks

appeared much more sophisticated.

According to Chechen sources, the Web site was hijacked by hackers from

the FSB. The FSB hackers reportedly accomplished this by changing the

domain registration of the site and then eliminating the data for the site from

the hosting server. Upon learning of these attacks, the rebels moved the

information on the sites to kavkazcenter.com. However, that site was

attacked just a week later, also apparently the work of FSB hackers.

In July, Russian hackers were blamed for a similar assault on Lithuanian

government Web sites. In Security Fix's account of that attack, I posted a

copy of a congratulatory letter sent to nationalist Russian hackers by Nikolai

Kuryanovich, a former member of the Russian Duma. The missive is dated

March 2006, and addresses the hacker group Slavic Union after the group

had just completed a series of successful attacks against Israeli Web sites.

"In the very near future many conflicts will not take place on the open field of

battle, but rather in spaces on the Internet, fought with the aid of information

soldiers, that is hackers," Kuryanovich wrote. "This means that a small force of

hackers is stronger than the multi-thousand force of the current armed

forces."

The Grey Goose report concludes that the journeyman-apprentice

relationship observed in the StopGeorgia forum will continue to be the

training model used by nationalistic Russian hackers, and that those hackers

are actively engaged in finding more efficient ways to disable networks.

In the meantime, Carr said, the Russian government will continue to deny any

involvement in any nation-level cyber attacks.

"The Russian government has adopted this hands-off and satisfying position of

deniability while enjoying the rewards achieved by the Russian hacker

community," Carr said.

Culture Mandala, Vol. 8, No. 1, October 2008, pp.28-80

Copyright

2008 Jason Fritz

HOW CHINA WILL USE CYBER WARFARE

TO LEAPFROG IN MILITARY COMPETITIVENESS

byJason Fritz BS (St. Cloud), MIR (Bond)

Introduction

The People

s Republic of China (PRC) may be a global power economically but its military lacks force projection

beyond the Asia Pacific region. Its traditional military hardware is one to three generations behind the US and

Russia. In light of these deficiencies it is probable that cyber warfare will provide China with an asymmetric

advantage to deter aggression from stronger military powers as they catch up in traditional military capabilities.

Cyber warfare would also allow China to leapfrog by means of technology transfer and exploiting adversary

weaknesses. This investigation will address three primaryquestions: What is China

s current militarycapability?

How would cyber warfare allow China to seriously advance its strategic abilities? And what is the evidence that

China is headed in a cyber warfare direction?

1. Traditional Military Power of the PLA

In order to see how the Chinese military will

leapfrog

in military competitiveness, it is

necessary to establish its current capabilities. The Chinese People

s Liberation Army (PLA)

is composed of five main service branches, the PLA Ground Force, PLA Navy, PLA Air

Force, Second Artillery Corps, and the PLA Reserved Force. China has one of the world

largest military forces, with 2.3 million active members, a reserve force of 800,000, and a

paramilitary force of 3.9 million, for a grand total of approximately 7 million members. The

PLA has tried to transform itself from a land based power, to a smaller, mobile, high tech

power that is capable of reaching beyond its borders (Annual Report to Congress 2007;

China's National Defense in 2006).

During the 1980

s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping pushed for quality over quantity, and the

military was reduced by one million members. In 1993, President Jiang Zemin officially

announced a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) a part of the national military strategy for

modernization. RMA is a theory about the future of warfare, often connected to

technological and organizational recommendations for change in the United States military

and others. RMA is tied to modern information, communications, space technology, and

total systems integration. Careful observation of US involvement in the Kosovo,

Afghanistan, and Iraqi wars, furthered China

s interest in network-centric warfare and