Researcher: ‘cyber war’ qualification is deliberately misused

Security researcher Bruce Schneier argues that the term “cyber war” is deliberately misused. He believes that companies and governments benefit from this rhetoric. Schneier receives support from the White House for his position.

According to Schneier, who works at British Telecom, terms such as ‘cyber war’ do not correspond to reality. “What we’re seeing isn’t cyberwar, it’s an increasing use of war tactics and that’s creating confusion. We don’t have a clear definition of cyberwar yet, what it looks like and how to counter it,” Schneier said in a statement. interview with the BBC.

Speaking at the RSA security conference, the security researcher says a “war of metaphors” is currently raging over various incidents, such as the attacks from China on Google, the rise of WikiLeaks and the Stuxnet virus. This war rhetoric would tend to make politicians wrong and push through laws that would limit the openness of the internet. According to Schneier, there is also a chance of an arms race on the internet.

According to Schneier, the frequent use of the term ‘cyber war’ can be explained, among other things, by a power struggle between the military complex and various government institutions in the US. Many companies would also be able to profit financially from using such war rhetoric. Schneier does believe that cyber attacks can become part of conventional warfare, for example by disrupting a country’s data network during the first phase of a military offensive.

Schneier gets acclaim from Howard Schmidt, cyber security coordinator for the Obama administration. According to Schmidt, the term ‘cyber war’ is often incorrectly used as a metaphor for what in reality turns out to be online crime, sabotage or identity theft. He also acknowledges that the US Department of Defense has won the battle over maintaining national security by taking over the US Cyber ​​Command.