Reports the Washington Post:
DENVER — A new Air Force manual for cyberwarfare describes a shadowy, fast-changing world where anonymous enemies can carry out devastating attacks in seconds and where conventional ideas about time and space don't apply.
Much of the 62-page manual is a dry compendium of definitions, acronyms and explanations of who reports to whom. But it occasionally veers into scenarios that sound more like computer games than flesh-and-blood warfare.
The complete manual CYBERSPACE OPERATIONS: Air Force Doctrine Document 3-12, 15 July 2010 is linked, here. I have also included:
- AFDD3-13 Information Operations;
- Air Force Doctrine Document 2-5.1 Electronic Warfare; and
- AFDD1-04 Legal Support.
The Post article continues with:
"Their primary mission is in some ways defensive," said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Lewis said the government still hasn't decided whether offensive cyberwarfare is the province of the military or intelligence agencies.
"Who gets to do it? Is it a military operation?… An intel operation?" Lewis said. "They've made a lot of progress in the last year but they're still sorting out the doctrine."
* * *
The manual points out that much of the Internet's hardware and software are produced and distributed by private vendors in other countries who "can be influenced by adversaries to provide altered products that have built-in vulnerabilities, such as modified chips."
Defending the entire U.S. military network is unnecessary and probably impossible, the manual says. Just as the Air Force doesn't try to defend every square mile of airspace around the globe, it won't try to defend the whole of cyberspace.
The complete article, entitled Air Force manual describes shadowy cyberwar world, can and should be read on the Post's site at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102500324.html.
Leave a Reply