The Cyber Warfare/Security Briefing Part II

"He who offends others does not secure himself" - Leonardo da Vinci.

The blue circle represents what I knew before the USCYBERCOM briefing while the black circle represents elements I did not know.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Following on from my provisional assessment of the state of the field before my meetings with the USCYBERCOM Commander, I can now say with great confidence that it is possible to know enough about a field not to engage in any further earnest research every time a permutation occurs. Of course, this conclusion of mine may be down to the fact that my allegiance is to the Republic of Zimbabwe, and cyber threats are not our foremost concern at this present point in time. The picture above represents what I knew about the field (blue circle) and what I did not know (black circle) before meeting Admiral Michael S. Rogers.

Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Commander USCYBERCOM, Director NSA.

The Real State of the Cyber Environment

Admiral Michael S. Rogers speaks to Financial and Security Experts at the London Stock Exchange.

My summary of the field in Part I (pre-meeting) is very much valid. The only thing I can now add is that as the NSA Commander as well as the GCHQ Director also presented their views of the field, I managed to get an insider's view as opposed to mine which is that of a dilettante. Their classification of the various threats; criminal, vandal, state attack etc and the ways in place to respond to each of these threats were also much better than mine. Again, this may be due to the fact that I only worry about those cyber actions that are related to, or may result in open warfare. These practitioners were more concerned, or rather, equally concerned with commercial crime in cyber space. In this regard, my opening quotation by Leonardo da Vinci is not as apt as it could be - those who are targeted by cyber criminals do not necessarily have to have done something to get targeted. Possession of wealth and valuable information is enough reason for the cyber miscreants. It has always been my argument that military aggression creates committed enemies but this dictum does not strictly apply in the cyber domain. 

The other knowledge I do not have, represented by the black circle in the first picture, relates to classified information these officials did not divulge, as well as, that knowledge Donald Rumsfeld saw fit to call unknown unknowns.

My arrival for the meeting at the LSE

My arrival for the meeting at the LSE