On October 10th, 2011, Joseph Menn reported for the Financial Times on how the defense industry is increasingly turning to cybersecurity and cyberwar as a means of revenue, creating what has been termed a cyberwar industrial complex. Specifically, the article notes that "an increasing array of companies now sell software to the US government that can break into and degrade or destroy an enemy’s computer network, as well as programmes aimed at blocking such attacks." Further, the traditional US defense contractors (Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin) are buying up smaller cybersecurity firms in an effort to add cyber capabilities to their products.
The article goes on to explain how there has been an explosion of interest in cybersecurity. Hundreds of cybersecurity firms have popped up outside Washington and in the state of Maryland, pushing overall information technology employment in the greater Washington area to more than 280,000. These cybersecurity companies, often formed by reformed hackers and prior military, tout both their abilities to protect and infiltrate networks. These companies hope to cash in on the growing US budget for cyberarms; US intelligence, homeland security, and defense agencies spend $10bn annually on cybersecurity, and this figure is expected to climb by at least 9 per cent annually. When private companies' contributions are considered, spending on the US cyberarms market is more than $100bn.
This explosion of private interest in cybersecurity has raised interesting legal questions. As of now, there is a near-absence of export controls and global rules limiting cyberaggression. Unlike traditional weapons, these private firms can sell cybermonitoring and exploitation software to any country with which the US has relations, including both China and pre-revolution Egypt. The article concludes that although the rules of cyberwar will be debated in the years ahead, they are currently taking a back seat to private interest in cybersecurity.
The source article can be found here.
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