Book Review: Cyber Wars: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About it

2 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2018

See all articles by Aurathai Phongchiewboon

Aurathai Phongchiewboon

Political Science Association of Kasetsart University (PSAKU)

Date Written: January 1, 2018

Abstract

This book is one of the recommended books for investigating on the historical cyber wars and the establishment of cyber security protocols. This investigation will help the national security officials to protect the national security. Thus, this book has the useful information for the national security authorities and related cyber warriors for extending their understanding about the background context of cyber war and how to protect their national security. This book also provides the details of cyber wars for each case studies in the book together with the interesting perspective on national security and cyber intelligence management issues. Both authors have been recognized as the international security experts in two different generations - Clarke is a representative of the nuclear generation and Knake is a representative of the cyber generation. Both authors have shared their studies of the evolution of technological development and cyber warfare. They believed that the impacts of cyber warfare will ruin the confidentiality of people and destroy the national security. For national and international policy-makers, this book also can be used for starting a real discussion about substantive policies to cope the impacts of cyber warfare and its consequences on national security. The authors also give a good discussion about the nature of cyber warfare in different terms of cyber espionage, cyber crime and cyber terrorism as the insight into how governmental authorities dealt the existing and recurring problems. One part of the introduction to cyber warfare, the United States (US) is considered as a good example of the cyber warfare but actually, it is far the most vulnerable national security and the authorities seek the adaptable techniques to cope the problems of cyberwar attacks. The authors have reviewed various case studies to understand the roots of cyber warfare problems. Their analysis also included their perspectives on information technology development, social security and political complexity of each country. They also stated that the cyber war also leads to the damage to civil infrastructure (railroads, airlines and distribution systems) and the very harmful nuclear weapon which works faster and hard to detect. Therefore, the cyber war prevention strategy has shared some of the specific protocols to the nuclear prevention plans which were developed since the 1960s. Since over last decade, the cyber weapons can be highly disruptive and there is a need to create a new convention of what is the use of the cyber weapon. As a result, the occurrence of cyber war creates the unavoidable fear and the new challenges to human societies because of no common platform or lawful protocols to deal with hackers and attackers or document to ask many governmental organizations to cut off the with hackers and attackers from the internet networks. In the fact that, the authors mentioned that the US is one of the vulnerable countries to cyber-attacks because US government cannot firmly protect most important civil and banking systems but only protects the military. Over the last decade, the US has developed cyber offensive units and many countries have developed their capabilities and engaged in cyber warfare. The authors also mentioned that the US, China, and Russia have developed their cyber warfare capabilities as well as their leadership in this field. However, they concerned that information systems have been developed much faster than security measures to protect all part of personal and national security. Due to security systems will be falling behind, there is need of a special team of experts to assess the security of software and hardware regularly. Additionally, some specific software to detect the malware and suspicious lines of harmful codes in early stages. The gist of this book also mentioned that “internet of things” (IoT) era have made us rely more and more on the utilization of computer, software, social networks and cyber technologies that increases the opportunity of the vulnerability of personal and national securities. One example in this book, many power grids in the US is on the cyber net controlling computer which the distance access to their systems are not only turn on and shut down the power but also the ability to destroy them. This is the same results of remote controlling such as oil refineries, air traffic control systems and many automobiles, as for the negative impacts of cyber warfare can be led to devastating damage in each nation and worldwide. Therefore, this book was recommended for a quick read for the informative ideas of cyber warfare and the ways of handling the insecurity of nation which caused by cyber terrorism as a part of mass social crimes.

Suggested Citation

Phongchiewboon, Aurathai, Book Review: Cyber Wars: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About it (January 1, 2018). International Journal of Crime, Law and Social Issues, Vol. 5, No. 1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3248128 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3248128

Aurathai Phongchiewboon (Contact Author)

Political Science Association of Kasetsart University (PSAKU) ( email )

8/82 Banklangmueng Ngamwongwan, Ngamwongwan Road,
Bangkok 10210
Thailand

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