Cyber war tactics can bite back: Kaspersky

The world is inching towards a worse case cyber security scenario, according to Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and Founder, Kaspersky Lab.

His warning was due to the widespread use of cyber weapons by military forces and terrorist organisations. He was speaking at the recent Auscert conference.

According to Kaspersky the sources of cyber attacks range from criminals motivated by money, hactivists and cyber terrorists motivated by political aims and government agencies involved in state versus state conflict.

 “While most of these attacks are espionage attacks, some are militarily motivated, like Shamoon and Stuxnet, however the intention behind military and espionage attacks in cyber space is often very similar,” said Kaspersky

 “Without technical data it’s very difficult to pin point the source of a cyber attack and identify the perpetrator as was seen in the Shamoon and Stuxnet example,” he said.

To overcome the threat a combined response was required from security software, administration, government regulation and international cooperation. According to Kaspersky it will be very difficult to protect critical infrastructure in the absence of this coordination.

Among the key points in his address;

* Identifying the source of attack is almost impossible, limiting the chance of catching the cyber terrorists and criminals

* Cyber weapons are not targeted, once in the wild they can infect any target. They are designed for a purpose and can come back to haunt the creator. He described this as the Boomerang effect

* Since malware isn’t perfect the chance of collateral damage was high. “Weapons aimed at one particular target could reach thousands of others through bad luck or chance”

* Defence is difficult as corporate computer systems which inherently insecure.

*Cyber weapons are much easier to develop than conventional weapons making them attractive for both large nation states and small terrorist cells.