War, down the wires

摘要

Cyberspace Some call it the new domain of war, after land, sea, air and space. The 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's uranium enrichment plant, suspected to have come from Israel or the US, seemed to confirm this status. Stuxnet raised the spectre of cyber-sabotage. The recently discovered Duqu trojan, which contains some Stuxnet code, is built to steal information about computers controlling industrial plants. IT security analysts such as Symantec suspect Duqu came from the same source as Stuxnet, and may be seeking vulnerable points for future sabotage. October saw a glut of talk aboul cyberwar. News reports in the US claimed that Barack Obama's administration chose not to launch a cyberattack against Libyan air defences in March. Also in October, the Pentagon announced that the joint chiefs of staff, the country's highest military officers, were reviewing the rules of engagement for cyberwar. A few days later, another report suggested China may have launched a cyberattack against two US civilian satellites.