If the war in Ukraine has shown us anything, it is the horrific power of conventional weapons. Digital tools can do many things, but they cannot level a building, destroy a tank or directly end an innocent life, reports Sky News.
Possibility of a Russian cyberattack
Informed observers of cyber are not surprised by this dynamic. They have long argued that military terms such as “cyberwar” and “cyberweapons” fail to describe the real impact of cyber, which is most relevant in the grey zone between peace and war, where states are in conflict or competition but not actually fighting on the battlefield.
The fog of war applies in this domain as much as anywhere else, and cyber is almost certainly being used to support the Russian troops on the ground in ways we cannot see. However, at this point it is clearly following the physical bombardment, not leading it, still less working as an independent force.
This is worth bearing in mind when we consider the possibility of a Russian cyberattack on a democratic country such as the UK.
Cyberspace retaliation
Leading cybersecurity analyst Dmitri Alperovitch was one of the first people to predict that Putin would invade Ukraine. He fully expects the Russian leader to order cyber attacks as a response to economic sanctions.
“Russia’s not going to take that lying down,” he said at a recent event organised by his Alperovitch Institute think tank. “It’s going to retaliate against the West, including in cyberspace.”
“They’re obviously quite busy right now, prosecuting the war in Ukraine, I don’t think they’re interested in further escalating the fight and having a cyber tit-for-tat with the West until they get Ukraine more under control, but as soon as they start accomplishing their military objectives on the ground in Ukraine they may revert back to looking at the West.”
“I expect they might target energy infrastructure in Europe, they might target it in the US as well. They might go after financial infrastructure as direct retaliation for sanctions.”
Did you subscribe to our daily newsletter?
It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe!
Source: Sky News
