Key Points: Attribution has three distinct layers; political, technical, and forensic with each having different confidence levels and analysis strategies Adversaries must interact with systems to exploit them and this creates evidence or anomalies that can be used for attribution…
Category: Cyber Conflict
State on State conflict using a variety of assets within and outside of cyberspace to create specific effects as a form of projection of power.
Hiring military leaders off the street
Lots of snark talk from the military types out there. I understand it, but don’t have to agree with it. Over the weekend Military Times put out an article that above the fold states. Defense Secretary Ash Carter wants to…
Adversary interaction: Indicators of sophistication
There are no absolutes including the absence of absolutes. As such any discussion of adversary sophistication is whimsical at best and likely reliant of chains of logic subject to breaking at their weakest link. If you can handle that then…
Cyber Fratricide (CyCon CCD COE 2014 Presentation)
3 forms of cyber attribution
There are three forms of attribution: 1) Political attribution based on the actors motives and goals. 2) Technical attribution based on tactics, techniques and means of an entity. 3) Forensic attribution based on the evidence of behaviors and facts.
Research Note: Security, privacy, insider threats, and espionage
I am concerned about how this discussion has evolved, and it is influenced heavily by political and ideological biases. More importantly, it is in a box, which does not reflect a stern reality. I have been told that “Privacy is…
Strat pack fall down go boom
I’ve been watching the response to Adam Elkus recitation of issues of blogging on grand strategy. I have been following the writing of Adam since he was at Occidental College. I have been following many writers as they start out…
Research Note: Defining attacker knowledge, skill, and ability
Introduction There exists an area of undiscovered value within the intersection of information assurance and security, standardized education, cognitive methods, and assessments of cognitive methods. At this intersection are the basics of profiling and evaluating the knowledge, skills and abilities…
Research Note: After Carshark and into ICS, SCADA, and embedded systems
After DefCon this year and CarShark last year I don’t know if there is any interest in exploring this aspect of cyberspace further, but thought we might look at a few things. The reason you should care is though there…
Intelligence, information, and other cybery thoughts
If we look at the basic precepts of what we mean by cyber warfare and conflict it is that we create a political effect upon an adversary where they either do something or stop doing something. That word cyber crops…
Hackers, crackers, soldiers, sailors, software, hardware, money and fun
In the past few years we have gone from nation-state dominance of the cyber realm, to the idea of non-state actors, and now with the Snowden leaks we are moving back towards realization of state actor preeminence. The rules of…
9th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (CFP)
ICCWS 2014 is an opportunity for academics, practitioners and consultants from around the world who are involved in the study, management, development and implementation of systems and concepts to combat information warfare or to improve information systems security to come…
Data, Forensics, and the Use of Cyberweapons | The Loopcast
Where I get interviewed by the Loopcast! Data, Forensics, and the Use of Cyberweapons | The Loopcast. Professor Sam Liles (@selil) and I (@rejectionking) talk about defining data, digital forensics, cyber weapons, potential responses to being hacked, and briefly…
So you want to play a game: Command and control warfare
There is a reason the first mass media movie on cyber warfare has the computer WOPR playing games than war. To the technical well-informed individuals who make up the information technology discipline war is a game. WOPR though existed in…
Cyber as guerrilla or insurgency conflict (war)
These are some articles I’ve written on the topic. Liles, S., “ A unified generational warfare model”, The Handbook of 5th Generation Warfare, 2010 Liles, S., “The issues of non-state actors and the nation state”, Threats in the Age of Obama,…