Pentagon works to define rules of cyber warfare

The US military may never have a direct answer on when to fire back against a computer-based attack, a top Pentagon leader said Wednesday, reflecting the complex world of cyber warfare.

James Miller, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense, said the Pentagon has been working through a range of scenarios, in an effort to come up with rules of war that will work in an attack that can be launched from continents away in milliseconds, and routed through innocent civilians' computers by unknown assailants. "I do not think we're going to have a single answer," Miller said during a speech at Ogilvy Public Relations. He said officials may just have to use their judgment because there are "a lot of gray areas in this field." Miller said the Pentagon is trying to address the myriad of policy questions surrounding the issue, including when an attempt to steal sensitive data or attack a network rises to the level of aggression that must be answered.