Why cyberwarfare is the great equalizer

[Commentary] Today, information warfare, also called cyberwarfare, while still in its infancy, is disruptive.

Cyberattacks can include stealing valuable corporate research, intercepting military communications and the destruction of computer systems. These attacks can be used to augment traditional, kinetic attacks – those using troops and guns, or to destroy physical assets such as power generation facilities or systems used to control emergency services. Cyberattacks present a great risk to industrialized nations, which are highly connected and extremely dependent on computers from the electric grid and financial services to transportation and national defense. Developing nations, such as emerging and frontier countries throughout parts of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia are less dependent on computers. As a result, they have a lower cyber risk profile. Many developing nations see cyber as an equalizer – a mechanism to shift advantage in the face of superior technology and numbers. As a result, these countries are making investments to develop talent, techniques and technology related to information warfare. For example, it's difficult to get empirical evidence about North Korea, but it has been sited that in North Korea approximately 500 "cyber warriors" graduate every year. We must build our security strategies with the understanding that despite having strong or weak security, given the proper resources, time and motivation, compromise is virtually imminent. Public and private sector organizations have been focused too long on incident prevention without adequate controls for incident detection and response.

[Brian Contos is chief security officer at forensics firm Solera Networks]