Strategic Challenges

All political and military conflicts now have a cyber dimension, whose size and impact are difficult to predict.  National security experts must now acknowledge that real political and military objectives can be won or lost in cyberspace, even if only on the propaganda front.  Globalisation and the Internet have aided foreign intelligence services and terrorists as much as any other part of society.  Communications, fund-raising, public relations, and information gathering are all greatly aided by networking technologies, and the pure amplifying power of the Internet means that the battles fought there can be just as important as events taking place on the ground.

Terrorists and spies can now use Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) via the Web for much of their information collection needs, but offensive computer network operations, using hacking techniques to obtain information not publicly available, appear to be commonplace.  Government leaders around the world now complain publicly of cyber espionage.   The high level of interest stems from the extraordinarily high Return on Investment that computer spies seek: free research and development data, access to sensitive communications, and much more.  The elegance of computer hacking lies in the fact that it can be attempted for a fraction of the cost and risk of other illicit information collection strategies.

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