The Information Warfare: how it can affect us Rethinking Warfare 9-10th September, 2012 University Fernando Pessoa

1. The Information Warfare
- how it can affect us -
Luis Borges Gouveia
lmbg@ufp.edu.pt (UFP)

2. one initial remark…

3. Ideas & concepts are great but…

4. One of the main topics in
warfare in the 21st Century
• NETWORK-CENTRIC AND INFORMATION WARFARE,
OPERATIONS, AND RELATED TECHNOLOGY
– Networks (focus on computers and telecommunications)
– Memory and storage & information analysis – intelligence
(focus on digital information)
– Electronic based tech to influence, alter, reduce and
change information (focus on how humans process
information)
• Gibish, E. (2003). WARFARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY - A Selected
Bibliography. U.S. Army War College Library. Carlisle Barracks, PA. EUA
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/library/bibs/warfar03.htm

5. Information warfare is a everyone
concern – worldwide…
• Explore the Pakistan’s site Terminal X on
Defence, intelligence and geopolitics
– http://www.terminalx.org/2011/03/overview-modern-
communication.html

6. One (big) example…
• On June 23 2009, the United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
issued notifications for the establishment of the world's first dedicated
CYBERCOM (Cyber Command), the USCYBERCOM based on growing
concerns of Chinese military penetration into Pentagon defense systems.
He outlined the objective in the following statement:
"My own view is that the only way to counteract both criminal and
espionage activity online is to be proactive. If the U.S. is taking a formal
approach to this, then that has to be a good thing. The Chinese are
viewed as the source of a great many attacks on Western infrastructure
and just recently, the U.S. electrical grid. If that is determined to be an
organized attack, I would want to go and take down the source of those
attacks. The only problem is that the Internet, by its very nature, has no
borders and if the U.S. takes on the mantle of the world's police; that
might not go down so well."

7. Another one…
• On January 15 2011, the NY Times reported:
Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar
with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical
testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to
make a bomb of its own.
Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges
virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to
enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer
worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of
Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to
make its first nuclear arms.
• Conflicting reports just recently now suggest that it was the US which was behind
the design, trial and injection of the Stuxnet worm. There can be a strong
possibility that both Israel and the US cyber commands worked in tandem against
Irani cyber command which was setup to "prevent espionage and sabotage in
Information Technology (IT) tools" according to General Syed Kamal Hadianfar,
Head of the Information Production and Exchange Department of the Law
Enforcement Police in Iran.

9. Cyberwar non human nature…

10. Working Definition
Information warfare is comprised of operations
directed against information in any form,
transmitted over any media, including
operations against information content, its
supporting systems and software, the physical
hardware device that stores the data or
instructions, and also human practices and
perceptions

11. Information Operations (IO)
• Military Information Warfare
• IO is conducted during time of crisis or
conflict to affect adversary information and
information systems while defending one's
own information and systems

12. peace as an ultimate goal
". . . attaining one hundred victories in one
hundred battles is not the pinnacle of
excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army
without fighting is the true pinnacle of
excellence."
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

13. Better than brute force
"There are but two powers in the world, the
sword and the mind. In the long run the
sword is always beaten by the mind."
Napoleon Bonaparte

14. Core Capabilities
• Psychological Operations (PSYOPS)
• Military Deception (MILDEC)
• Operations Security (OPSEC)
• Computer Network Operations (CNO)
• Electronic Warfare (EW)

15. Environment Shaping
Political Power Overt Peacetime
Economic Power Shaping the
PSYOP
Public Affairs Information Space Deception
Public Diplomacy Covert Action
Deterrent
Capabilities
Information Operations
Public Diplomacy
International Power Shaping the
Public Affairs
Force Disposition Conflict Space
Network Security
Psychological Operations
Operational Security
Covert Action & Deception
Information
Warfare
Force Disposition Deception
Shaping the
Fire Power Operational Security
Battle-Space
Electronic Warfare Psychological Operations

16. Evolution of Terminology
• Propaganda & Political Warfare
• Psychological Warfare
• Psychological Operations
• Information Warfare
• Information Operations
• Influence Attitudes / Strategic Influence /
Perception Management

17. IO & IW formal definitions
• Information Operations Doctrine (OTAN)
- Information Warfare:
“ Information operations conducted during time of crisis
or conflict to achieve or promote specific objectives
over a specific adversary or adversaries.”
- Information Operations:
“Actions taken to affect adversary information and
information systems while defending one’s own
information and information system’s.”

18. Information Age Conflict
INFORMATION INFORMATION
IN WARFARE WARFARE
Intelligence  Influence Attitudes
Surveillance
 Deny/Protect
Reconnaissance
 Deceive
Weather
Geographic  Exploit/Attack
Other

20. Potential vulnerability due to
information war in our society
• the vulnerability of democracies to false, misleading, or carefully
crafted attacks orchestrated through the news media;
• attacks by creative individuals skilled and determined enough to
exploit communications systems and computer networks for illegal
gain or to disrupt society;
• criminal organizations (terrorists, drug smugglers, illegal arms
merchants, international poachers, and rogue banking groups) that
sit across any one country's boundaries represent a poorly-met
challenge;
• coalition warfare in which military cooperation and interoperability
are essential, but political goals are not fully compatible and
intelligence sources and methods must be protected; and
• psychological warfare waged against a general population in order
to undermine confidence in leaders or the wisdom of their
actions, often exploiting ethnic, social or moral cleavages in the
target society.
http://www.iwar.org.uk/iwar/resources/deterrence/iwdAppb.htm

22. Final
remarks

23. Cyberpower targets
Intra cyberspace Extra cyberspace
Digital info tools Hard: denial of service Hard: atacks to SCADA
attacks systems
Soft: creaty standards and Soft: public opinion
procedures campain and diplomacy to
influence
Physical info tools Hard: campanies Hard: routing and cabling
governmental control destruction
Soft: software to support Soft: protests to identify
human rights & others and embaressement
activists suppliers
Nye, J. (2010) The Future of Power. PublicAffairs.
See also: http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/spring2011/power.pdf

24. Three cyberpower tactics
(familiar with these?)
• A tell B what to do
- if not the case, B will not do that
• A do not allow choice to B
- including barriers to B apply its own
strategies
• A shapes the B preferences
- this way, B never consider some of the
available strategies

25. Major players in information war
• leading governments (most powerful Nations)
– Vulnerabilities: depend on complex systems, also
fragile, political instability, possible loss of reputation
• Multinational organizations and high structured
networks
– Vulnerabilities: Legal action, intellectual property
theft, system failure, public censorship
• Individuals and less structured networks
– Vulnerabilities: legal and ilegal stress by governments
and big organizations, when caught

26. One more (general) conclusion…
• Defensive information warfare, unlike warfare
of other sorts, cannot be left solely to the
government.
It must be seen as the business of every
organization likely to be a target
• MacNulty, C. (1996). Changing Social Values and their
Implications for Information Warfare. INFOWARCON 5.
Washington DC. September.
http://www.exploit-the-future.com/paper1/paper1.htm