National Security Agency director Mike Rogers speaks at Stanford University, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, in Stanford, Calif.

National Security Agency director Mike Rogers speaks at Stanford University, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, in Stanford, Calif. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

NSA Chief: Rules of War Apply to Cyberwar, Too

In the tightly controlled discussion about cyber weapons, this counts as a step toward transparency.

The Pentagon keeps its rapidly expanding cyber arsenal almost entirely secret, which helps keep U.S. capabilities potent but also hinders the public’s ability to meaningfully discuss their use and costs. The development of new worms or viruses doesn’t show up in the President’s annual budget request in the same way as does money for jets and tanks; and cyber weapons don’t grace the cover of magazines.

Is there a way to discuss publicly what the future of cyber operations will look like? Defense One recently put the question to Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference outside of Washington, D.C.

Rogers indicated, unsurprisingly, that full transparency will remain impossible. But he also opened up, ever so slightly, in promising that Cyber Command would follow international norms in determining how the U.S. uses what are sometimes called offensive cyber capabilities. “Remember, anything we do in the cyber arena … must follow the law of conflict. Our response must be proportional, must be in line with the broader set of norms that we’ve created over time. I don’t expect cyber to be any different,” he said.

Rogers framed the development of cyber weapons as simply the next evolutionary step in warfare, replete with all the ethical concerns that accompanied other milestones in weapons development. “I’m sure there were huge reactions to the development of mass firepower in the 1800s as a new kind of warfighting implement. Cyber represents change, a different technical application to attempt to achieve some of the exact same effects, just do it in a different way. Like those other effects, I think, over time, we’ll have a broad discussion in terms of our sense of awareness, both in terms of capabilities as well as limitations,” he said.

The cyber chief downplayed the difference between offensive cyber capabilities and more familiar types of weapons. “We tend not to get into the specifics of some kinetic systems. I don’t think in that regard that cyber is any different,” he said. (Kinetic weapons cause real physical damage; think bombs and other munitions.)

Rogers’s willingness to speak about the subject at all marks another small step forward in transparency about cyber operations, according to Shane Harris, author of @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. “In just the past few years, U.S. officials have been talking much more openly both about the use of cyber weapons and what they think the restraints on them should be. Rogers is doing exactly that here,” Harris told Defense One. “There was a time not so long ago when you wouldn't hear a senior U.S. even acknowledge that we engage in offensive cyber operations.”

In June 2011, the Pentagon acknowledged the existence of a list of secret weapons and offensive capabilities but didn’t detail what the items were. Probably the most famous cyber weapon of all time, the Stuxnet worm that crippled Iranian nuclear enrichment at the Natanz facility in 2010, remains officially unattributed despite wide suspicion that it was built and deployed by the United States, Israel, or both.  

The Real World of Virtual Weapons

Meanwhile, the development of such weapons continues apace, as does their deployment beyond Cyber Command’s office buildings in Virginia. Future battles—at sea, on land and in the air—will have a cyber component handled not just by specialists far from the action but by soldiers at the front, according to operational military leaders who spoke beside Rogers at Sea-Air-Space.

“The risk and the resiliency associated with cyber is owned by the commander,” said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Daniel J. O'Donohue. “We have disassociated that, frankly, by using specialized communities taking risks, acquisition managers taking risk, staffs taking risk on behalf of the commander.”

O’Donohue cautions that the U.S. does not necessarily hold an insurmountable advantage in cyber as a dimension of ground combat.

“How do you put cyber into a campaign? When you look at your enemy through your IPB [intelligence preparation for the battlefield], your terrain also includes the cyber terrain… But there’s no way you can stand up a network when the enemy is practicing 24/7 every day against you,” he said. “How to do you manage your command and control when you are penetrated, while your degraded war-fighting systems are all dependent on the network, and continue to have the resiliency to continue operations at the same time?”

One part of the solution is getting ground commanders much more involved in the creation of cyber warfare capabilities, he said: “If the operational commander doesn’t own this, we’re going to get what the CIO delivers.”

Some weapons that have cyber effects are more obvious than others. Among the more brash (and easy to point to) is the AN/ALQ-231 Intrepid Tiger II electronic warfare pod that can disrupt enemy networks and equipment. Others are more subtle. In his book, Harris discusses how elite NSA hackers with a unit called Tailored Access Operations worked with soldiers on the front lines in places like Iraq to find and manipulate enemy fighters by hacking devices and perpetrating phishing schemes, essentially a feat of online impersonation.

“The U.S. hackers sent fake text messages to insurgent fighters and roadside bombers. The messages would tell the recipient, in effect, ‘Meet at this street corner to plan the next attack,’ or ‘Go to this point on a road and plant your device.’ When the fighter got there, he’d be greeted by U.S. troops, or perhaps the business end of a Hellfire missile fired from a drone aircraft thousands of feet above,” Harris writes.

In the not-too-distant future, troops may carry situational-awareness gear that makes the cyber world relevant to the real battlespace in the same way night- vision goggles reveal what the enemy looks like in the dark. The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, or DARPA, recently outlined its new Plan X program: a “foundational cyber warfare program to develop platforms for the Department of Defense to plan for, conduct, and assess cyber warfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare.”

At the New America Foundation’s Future of War summit in Washington, D.C., in February, DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar discussed how the program seeks to give soldiers a way to visualize what’s happening in the local cyber environment: "Maybe they’ll walk through an urban environment…they’ll know a Wifi node has been implicated in a prior act of violence against U.S. troops.”

But giving troops smart-phone apps that tell them about networks and routers on the streets of Mosul is different from developing and deploying cyber weapons that turn off the lights.

Cyber weapons can scale and can replicate automatically. One string of code can potentially dismantle a wide number of enemy systems or aspects of civilian infrastructure. They deploy with the push of a button. But depending on configuration and use, an operator enjoys the luxury of turning the weapon on or off, the basis of what’s sometimes called ransomware, where an attacker locks down a system and then releases it upon receiving payment. The same tactic on the battlefield could be a way to force an opponent to submit or surrender without a shot being fired and without any equipment being lost on either side. “This versatility offers at least one set of capabilities that can operate in the transition space between diplomacy and military action, as well as more squarely in the military domain,” Maren Leed wrote in a 2013 paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies on future cyber offensive operations.

Rogers’s assurance that the U.S. will follow the laws of conflict in how it deploys cyber weapons is significant. But since such weapons can be constructed in secret, and, often, offer victims no way to determine attribution, the world will have to take that assurance at face value—or not.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.