Vasile SIMILEANU, PhD

War, as such, had different ways and countermeasures. Developments in the broader sense, were included and climbed on the full spectrum of social, political, military, cultural, religious and economic.

Sources that formed the basis of conflicts that have been and are many and varied, ranging from simple contradictions of economic, political, national, religious, ethnic, social, etc. At the same time, each of these contradictions had a certain logic born of a complex of causes, which made it difficult, somewhat, a strict classification.

DRIVERS IN GENERATING CONFLICTS

As in the case of classic conflicts, the virual space conflicts are found a multitude of factors, which can be:

Economic factors

In cyberspace, we assist to a standing “competition” aimed at fulfilling the strategic objectives of economic and industrial STN (competitors or opponents), multinational organizations (NGOs) or other State actors, as well as military objectives promoted by some of these actors. If, in the case of a classic conflict of the military conflict initiators were unstable economies and States with a low level of production, we will notice that virtual attacks range from emerging States or having a privileged economic situation, the targets being the economic competitors in the market, banks, government agencies or providers of cyber security systems.

Political factors

Most of the times we noted that, in the event of military conflicts are involved certain political circles who want the replacement of rule of law of the State concerned. In cyberspace, we will witness the utterly different kind of non-military events, aimed at defaming political leaders, intoxication, propaganda, disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion with regard to their activities (promoted mainly through social networks), identity theft.

Social factors

It says that the virtual space we don’t have casualties, meaning the casualties resulting from a military conflict!

The experience of recent years has shown us that that CyberWar actions are impacting very high on the social factors and spreads in the sphere of interpersonal relations (groups, parties, movements) in society (e.g., the Arab spring, migrations, instated by the terror some terrorist groups, social crises, challenging some of the achievements in the social plan by some Governments, attracting masses to “spontaneous gatherings”, etc.), aimed at creating social tension and disarray in a rival State. On these factors depends the degree of preparedness for conflict of various social groups, of the population in the region, in order to improve their conditions of existence.

Military factors

Of course, the basis of the above events are mainly purely military factors, which are no longer defined by resolving problems by using force, but with the methods and strategies adapted to the time and current technologies.

Essentially, the goal is the same: to reveal the degree of influence of each of these factors with reference to a concrete case of worsening political and military situation of a State or of a supra-national economic entities competing.

Thus, military conflict should be regarded as an exclusive form, when any counter-measures taken to settle a conflict in cyberspace has not given expected results and produced substantial damage to the system, and supreme form, if the level of straining exceeded regional segment and has global impact, marking life and international security.

Features to be taken into account in the analysis of the contents and the attempt of systematization of the structure and of the main evolution stages of the military conflict, caused by the CyberAttack:

The elements, strategy, goals and the features of such actions, not of the scale of the present ones, have been researched and described by thinkers like Sun Tzâ, Xenofon, Machiavelli, Liddel Hart, Libicki and others.

These concerns included:

 your opponent’s strategy and plans;

 military information infrastructure;

 command-and-control systems;

 the civil infrastructure.

Even though the analysts level was said in early 2000 that CRS Western-style societies, will finish this IT transition over a period of between 15-20 years, this term is no longer topical. Technological leaps have demonstrated that mutations suffered in recent years have resulted in substantial changes to the macro-scale corporations and political-military alliances, with effects on the security of individual information from the global sphere, cyberspace has become a “battle field” for defending the interests of humanity.

New fields of competition have caused themselves the emergence of new attributes of the CyberWar and CyberSecurity. Turn of the 21st century right next to events like these challenges are permanent, multimodal and, besides the dual aspects in addition to “dress up” hybrid shapes, increasingly difficult to manage (if the conflict in Ukraine).

In the new asymmetric multimodal context, appropriate global strategies are needed, to integrate collection, protection, transport, management and limiting the access to information, not only during times of crisis or conflict.

Multidisciplinarity CyberSecurity involves reactions in C⁴I plans as a whole society, and may be based on the concepts of system-level multimodal complex systems.

Duality in the context of this analysis, define as a common strategy for the military and civilian spheres which intertwine increasingly more!

Current events have shown that most often than not the States and the categories of military forces have absolute monopoly on the violent means and, in particular, the “informational violence”. Using this approach, we note that State-level strategic centre of gravity shifted gradually toward civil infrastructure which has become the most important goal – banking, finance, energy and systems of systems fields being vulnerable while defending their conventional forces becoming problematic.

New challenges have demonstrated that CyberWar and CyberSecurity are using offensive and defensive information and systems that operate them, to exploit, corrupt and destroy adversary information and information systems, also protecting their own information and systems.¹

Basic Forms of Cyber War

In the context of computer attacks, both military and civil actions are based on the following principles:

• the “beheading” principle through which the separation of the primary targets of the decision-making support and communication networks is achieved;

• the sensory intuition principle that takes into account the annihilation and destruction of opponent’s sensors;

• the interoperability principle that requires implementation of optimal network communication between own structures and the allied one;

• the knowledge principle has as basic requirement an assimilation and management of the greatest amounts of information about (ones) own systems, those of allies and opponents;

• the survival principle – is vital to the establishment of strategies and policies of information war and it is achieved by:

• an opponent’s actions foreseen;

• a centralized leadership information actions;

• achieving effective communication between organizational levels;

• a decentralized planning and implementation of information actions;

• the hierarchy principle;

• he intensity principle.

  In terms of conducting operations type Cyber (War or Security) we should keep in mind the following:

  PRINCIPLE OF UNCERTITY	creation moods of:	distrust anxiety anguish fear
  	manifests through:	constant dissimulation
  		uncertainties regarding	course of combat actions goal of combat actions time of commencement venue action form forces used insured assets adopted methods
  	dwelling in:	hypotheses
  		– assumptions
  		hesitations
  		inaccuracies
  	practical application of:	classical procedures specific to the intelligence operations	keeping the secret
  			surprise mobility elimination of routine and repetition
  			flexibility
  			diversity of the forces and means	spying
  				collecting and transmiting sending informations
  				research
  				parallel diplomacies
  				alliances
  		manipulation in mass-media using:	misinformation
  			propaganda
  			intoxication
  			issuance of rumors
  		desuetude
  THUNDERBOLT PRINCIPLE	breaking the rhythm of the opponent’s combat actions
  	executing extremely fast and efficient strikes in key moments of combat actions of the adversary, for:		thwarting the actions favorable to the enemy
  			destruction of cohesion
  			destruction of logistical flows
  			affecting the moral of the troops
  	procedures		taking by surprise
  			saving military forces and resources
  			instantaneity of the effects
  			synchronizing simultaneous media
  			freedom of action
  			cooperation
  			concentration of troops
  			change of pace
  	based on		the multiplication of force
  			use of specific electronic war means and actions

  The targets of the new war in cyberspace, were studied by Michael Wilson¹ – member of „Nemesis” group – and they can be:

   phone communication networks (fixed and mobile);

   communication networks (radio, television, press);

   power supply networks;

   governmental networks;

   financial and banking systems;

   social service networks;

   transportation and logistics networks;

   hardware and software networks.

  The cyber fight involves:

   cyber actions;  cyber struggle;

   cyber attacks;  cyber operation²;

  Principles for designing, prepares and leads or prevents and deters cyber war are as follows:³

   consistency principle;  flexibility principle;

   capacity principle;  adaptability principle;

   causality principle;  prevention principle;

   unity principle;  deterrence principle;

   unitary leadership principle;  surprise principle;

   completeness principle;  sustenability principle;

   concentration principle;  morality principle;

   value principle;

  THE TOPOLOGY OF THREATS⁴

  Generic threats and entities of the model

  Database	O			O		O
  Elements of execution		O	O	O			O	O

  	Destruction	Decommissioning	Interference	Misleading	Glut	Intrusion	Delay	Operation
  Observation items		O	O	O
  Message sources	O							O
  Communications	O		O		O		O
  Management of the communication networks		O				O
  Responsible		O		O	O		O
  Staff / experts		O		O	O
  Decision models				O	O
  Processing elements		O				O

  (after Thomas P. Rona, Information Warfare – An Old Concept with New Insights,
  Defense Intelligence Journal, Washington D.C., 1995)

  The irregular nature of the expansion of cyber aggressions suggests the fact that its borders were not clearly defined.

  CONCLUSIONS

  Every citizen relies on existing networks and lives with them and in them. Almost no one thinks how often he/she uses different networking infrastructure. And for very few it is clear that these networks are becoming increasingly sensitive.

  Enterprises, companies and other organizations live in this world of networks, as well as ordinary citizens. In order to be able to maintain productivity, firms must be able to rely on these infrastructures. Key element for for setting the emplacement of a company is, ultimately, the existence of infrastructure needed in the chosen area. Society is subjected to a permanent interaction with these networks. Networks are not only the fundaments of a State, but also an illustration of civilization. Every person is formed and influenced by the surrounding networks. Radio, television, newspapers, books and the Internet transmitted information and manifest themselves as a medium for training education. The social network – from schools to the hospitals – forms people’s behavior. Almost every network has some influence on daily life of common problem and thereby on behavior.

  Globalization of the networks becomes a reality. Roads, phones, railways, airways and maritime ones, as well as the Internet does not stop at State borders. There are almost no borders that should not be crossed by networks. For a state, networks have a value that can not be quantified.

  Networks are legacies from the previous generation, and as such, are to be transmitted securely to the next generations, which is why the protection of networks is an important task and an obligation for the State.

  Networks are particularly sensitive infrastructures, which “incites” to sabotage – in times of war, as the primary and secondary targets, and in times of peace, as targets for terrorists -, with effects that can not be overlooked. By equipping with computers, they can be attacked from any place on Earth.

  Protection means, first and foremost, awareness of the vulnerability of our society based on networks (through creating a “network ethics”); protection must be financed and institutionalized at all the levels. It involves learning and developing the technologies and defense mechanisms.

  The best way for defending the networks continues to be represented by the development of secure connections as possible between all interconnected networks.