Cyber Warfare And Information Warfare - Essay: Overview, Types, And Relationship.

Cyber warfare

Discuss about the Report of Cyber Warfare And Information Warfare.

Cyber warfare is considered as a fifth dimension of war, it is penetrating attack. Cyber warfare can be found on an individual computer network or on a group of computer system connected over internet. Cyber warfare basically weakens the network by exploiting the information by stealing the sensitive data and result in sabotage. The one who performs cyber warfare can be individual person or group of hackers (Itpro, 2015). They can be an organisation that peruses criminal activities, terrorists or even foreign military government of different nation. Cyber warfare can be in external form or in internal form. External cyber warfare is more common and internal warfare is difficult to identify as they are caused due to malicious activities that are performed either intentionally or unintentionally. Cyber warfare can be treated as a best strategy to overcome the concern as it is highly anonymous, deniable and low expenditure on R&D. Globalization of information and cyber warfare is difficult to identify. These attacks are generally implemented by volunteers of different country. Cyber warfare mainly targets the stream of military network, government system, e-commerce and financial institutes (Creative technolgy, 2015). Cyber warfare attacks the hardware and software by using various weapons that are based on capability, availability and cost of manufacturing.

Cyber ware can be in any form but focus on the entire network and computers but information warfare mainly focuses on stealing the data of other components and misusing it by putting the organisation down in terms of their market place by delivering false and irrelevant information. In first part of the report cyber warfare has been discussed in detail and information warfare has also been discussed in the second section (Elder, Levis & Yousefi, 2015). Additionally, the relation between information and cyber warfare has been analysed, they both are related the only difference is information warfare focuses on stealing the information whereas cyber warfare covers all the criminal activities that could be perform over the crime.

Cyber warfare is the future of traditional warfare. It helps in fighting with the remote enemies through the use of new and advanced weapons including viruses and programs that alter the ability of enemies to operate (Jajodia,  Shakarian, Subrahmanian, Swarup & Wang, 2015). Cyber warfare can be described as the use of technology that violet the normal operations of programs in an organisation. The hackers attack on the system for getting sensitive information and using it in military purpose. It is difficult to identify the individual behind the attack.

Information warfare

Cyber warfare is a conflict on the network that is done intentionally by another nation. The entities of other nations try to disrupt the activities of an organisation. Thus it can be stated that cyber warfare is an attack that is penetrated in the system due to terrorist or group of hackers from other nation. Cyber warfare can be in the form of virus, malware or worms that degrades the performance of the system (Robinson, Jones & Janicke, 2015). Denial of service is another type of cyber warfare that prevents the authorized to access the information and resources on the network (Hammargren, 2014). This is a problematic situation as the valid users suffer due to some unauthorised users. It can also take the form of stealing the data from government and higher authorizes (Ventre, 2016).   

Information warfare is a method used for managing the information and communication over an opponent. Information warfare is a process in which the actual information is modifies but still it is trusted but the target audience as they are not aware about the modification. It is not visible when the information war fare has occurred and how it has affected the system (Hills & Batchelor, 2015). It can be considered as a conflict between two environments and the reason is information change. It is a very sensitive way to exploit the business by leakage its data. Information warfare is a combination of electronic warfare and cyber warfare.

Information warfare occurs due to ways of collecting information over the channel and information protection methods. These are the ways that causes severe damage to the data packets. Strategic information warfare has certain features like low entry cost, poor access boundaries and attack assessment problem (Darczewska, 2014). Information warfare is a way in which valid information is modified and then it is propagated in public to demoralize the enemy. Information warfare impacts the society as some irrelevant information or video has been made public that scatters the business as individuals mainly focus on what is showcased in the media. Information warfare is capable for breaking the capability of attacker to attack the system and find ways to terminate the war.

In today’s era the increasing criminal attacks have led to cyber warfare as they try to attack the confidential data by using critical infrastructure. Cyber warfare is increasing due to the use of internet; even if the system is secured hackers are penetrating in the system through side doors to exploit them. Cyber warfare can be defined as the use of computer technology for violating the security of organisation. In this information is hacked for military as well as strategic purpose. Cyber warfare is different from information warfare as cyber warfare includes attack on entire system. These attack result in complete shutdown of system or some issues in implications (Thornton, 2015). These attacks are not only based on computers but it may affect the power grids or aircraft system. On the other that information warfare is a technique in which data is used as a weapon. Cyber warfare is used for obtaining the data whereas information warfare is used to make unfair use of the data packets (Atgiller, 2015). Information warfare is hacking of data without the actual user to know it and misusing the data on web.

Relation of Cyber Warfare to Information Warfare

Information warfare and cyber warfare are related to each other as they both violets the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. An information based attack include that an unauthorized user attempt to copy data directly or they try to modify the information by altering the data packets (Floridi & Taddeo, 2014). Cyber warfare is focused more on computers and communication channels whereas information warfare involves much more than computers and networks.  Cyber warfare is a digital form of attack that is comprised of operations in the form to destroy the information. This can be done by transmitting the information over the media and positing information against the norms. Cyber warfare is much wider than information warfare as it focuses on all the hardware devices that stores information, software’s as well as human practices.

Information warfare or information operations is the integrated form of electronic warfare in which network operations as well as psychological operations of the system are used to corrupt the information of opponent party by making sure that their information has been secured. There are various capabilities that are used in information warfare like public affairs, cyberspace operations or military information. These capabilities may include broadcasting the information on the web which will lower the morale of opponent team. In this attack they move the inappropriate information in the market which leads to loss of integrity (Dobson, Rege& Carley, 2018). Cyberspace has been used to exploit the information warfare.

Cyber warfare and information warfare are related to each other as they both cause real damage to the nation and has a high cost related to it if not dealt effectively. These are the problems that can be resolved by undertaking proper IT securities. Information warfare is a part of cyber warfare as, cyber terrorism along with information warfare comprises of cyber warfare. Individual, businesses, organisations and nations are facing threats due to the increasing use of internet (Colarik & Janczewski, 2015). Cyber warfare and information warfare mainly refers to the use of internet services and computers. They can also be used to conduct warfare acts against different internet groups. Both the warfare are related as they include propagating the information in the network, vandalizing websites, denial of service as well as certain terrorist activities.

In the increasing tension between different countries all across the globe, it has become essential for the organisations to make sure that they have an effective mechanism for keeping themselves ready for both these wars (Elder, Lewis & Yousefi, 2015). Their relationship can be understood by the fact that information warfare actually destroys the system so as to gain advantage over their rivals. Better the technology developed by any organisation, better is the chances of their win over their competitors. The increasing hacking activities all around the world provide a close linkage with each other. This is due to the fact that when the hackers attack at any system they are somehow attacking the information that is present within the system. They both are done so as to exceed from others. Apart from this it helps in gaining of the competitive advantage which is necessary in the competition that is present in the environment. Information warfare is also practiced so as to damage the quality of the system.

Since the data has become the new method of paralysing any other competitors hence it is seen that many country like Chain and Russia has used it for the attacking the other countries crucial sites. It is also to be seen as a fact that most of the information presently resides in the cyber world. This deepens their relationship. Information warfare has actually supported the cyber warfare. This is because all the nations want to gather information of other nations for making decisions that is against their opponents. In this regards the cyber world plays a much greater role.

Apart from this it is also to be understood that any attack whether in the cyber warfare or information warfare ultimately destroys the competencies of the firm. This can also be attributed by the fact that countries are developing new technologies for having more powerful in both these kinds of warfare. 

Thus it can be summarized from this report that cyber warfare and information warfare is increasing day by day. Cyber warfare can be caused by other nation on the network of computers to spoil all the operations. Cyber warfare in turn degrades the performance of the system as it sometimes allows invalid user to access the information over the network. It spoils the integrity and confidentiality of data. Information warfare arrives in the system when proper access controls are been designed. It allows the attacker to enter the system from side doors and spoil the security of the information. It be concluded that it is difficult to identify and define both the cyber warfare and information warfare. The rise in cyber-attacks is due to the use of internet and because of storing all the sensitive information over the network. In this report the relation between cyber warfare and information warfare has been summarised. These two terms are different in many ways as cyber warfare is used for obtaining the information from the network whereas information warfare is used to make unfair use of the data packets by modifying it and propagating false information.

References

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Colarik, A., & Janczewski, L. (2015). Establishing cyber warfare doctrine. In Current and Emerging Trends in Cyber Operations (pp. 37-50). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

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Elder, R. J., Levis, A. H., & Yousefi, B. (2015). Alternatives to Cyber Warfare: Deterrence and Assurance. In Cyber Warfare(pp. 15-35). Springer, Cham.

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