Cyber Operations

12Tactical Cyber Effects

12.1 Cyber Tactical Effects

Tactical – relating to or constituting actions carefully planned to gain a specific military end.

(Oxford English Dictionary)

In Figure 1.3, we looked at cyber operations and where they fit on the spectrum of policy options. Strategic cyber operations, especially information operations, pick up where traditional Cold War era active measures leave off. However, tactical use of cyber is “above the line” and is used during operations that include military forces.

Even when used as part of a conventional military operation, cyber is similar to the use of stealth to cloak aircraft, with an ability to access enemy terrain at will without being detected by adversary sensor systems. While cyber has been used in information operations (e.g., 2008 Georgia and 2014 Ukraine/Crimea), the majority of cyber operations have been denial, often in advance of a conventional attack. Russia’s evolution from denial of service (DOS) to cyber/kinetic military operations provides examples in the development of a 21^st century tactical cyber actor. For example, multiple military and civil operations have included cyber –

2007 Estonia/2008 Georgia – Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) used by Russian “Patriotic Hackers” to attack banks, telecommunications, and critical infrastructure (Chapter 5)

2009 Twitter – Iran suppressed Twitter due to its use in protesting the re‐election of the then sitting President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, being re‐elected ...