The Internet is becoming a cyber war ground that companies and users will get caught in the middle of, warned Costin Raiu, director of global research and analysis at Kaspersky Lab.
Cyber warfare is a growing concern as a way for military and intelligence entities to attack their enemies.
“The Internet is becoming a war ground and the worst thing is that people like you and I, and also companies, will be caught in the middle of this cyber war,” Raiu said.
“It involves super powers fighting each other in cyber space in a kind of cold war. It is an expansion of conventional war tactics. Basically we are talking about espionage and offensive – they want to collect information about the enemy and sabotage their systems,” he added.
Nobody has admitted they are conducting these types of attacks, Raiu said, but if it continues it could lead to a real war amongst some of the world’s most powerful countries.
“The USA got upset about several incidents that involved China. They said if these incidents continue they will consider them as real world declarations of war,” Raiu said.
“I spoke to several people from the Chilean air force and they said according to existing international laws, if the person who is hacking another institution is wearing a military uniform it is no longer about cyber crime or hackers, but becomes a military operation and can be considered a reason for war,” he added.
Raiu proposed that new rules and procedures need to be introduced to prevent any of this from happening, and to protect users and businesses.
“That is why one of the ideas we are pushing is to make the Internet a military free-zone, to disconnect all the military entities from the Internet,” Raiu said.
“Let’s at least have some rules of engagement on the Internet because currently there is nothing and everybody just hacks each other as wild and as big as they want,” he added.
Kaspersky will be speaking in detail on cyber warfare at its conference next month in Mexico. CNME will have ringside seats.
Keep checking our site (www.cnmeonline) for stories from the floor, and follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/computernewsme) to get live updates.
