Security Engineering, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 23Electronic and Information Warfare

All warfare is based on deception … hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

– SUN TZU

Force, and Fraud, are in warre the two Cardinal Virtues.

– THOMAS HOBBES

23.1 Introduction

For decades, electronic warfare was a separate subject from computer security, even though they use some common technologies. This started to change in the last years of the twentieth century as the Pentagon started to fuse elements of the two disciplines into the new subject of information warfare, followed by Russia and China. The Russian denial-of-service attacks on Estonia in 2007 put it firmly on many policy agendas; Stuxnet moved it into prime time; and the Russian interference in two big political events of 2016, the UK Brexit referendum and the US election, taught legislators that it could cost them their jobs.

There are other reasons why some knowledge of electronic warfare is important to the security engineer. Many technologies originally developed for the warrior have been adapted for commercial use, and instructive parallels abound. The struggle for control of the electromagnetic spectrum was the first area of electronic security to have experienced a lengthy period of coevolution of attack and defense involving capable motivated opponents, giving rise to deception strategies and tactics of a unique depth and subtlety. Although the subject languished after the end of the Cold War in 1989, it has revived recently ...