Pentagon: Offensive cyberattacks fair game

The Pentagon has laid out its most explicit cyberwarfare policy to date, stating that if directed by the President, it will launch “offensive cyber operations” in response to hostile acts.

Those hostile acts may include “significant cyberattacks directed against the U.S. economy, government or military,” Defense Department officials stated in a long-overdue report to Congress. But the report is still silent on a number of important issues, such as rules of engagement outside designated battle zones — a sign of how challenging the policy debate is in the newest and most complex realm of warfare. That strategy focused on the importance of deterring attacks by building defenses that would “deny” adversaries the benefits of success. In the latest report, the Pentagon states that adversaries threatening a crippling cyberattack against the United States “would be taking a grave risk.”