France has begun to develop "digital weapons" that can be used to conduct "offensive operations in the framework of information war." The military superpowers, the United States, Britain, China, Russia and Israel, are preparing to defend themselves.
Six laboratories are developing technological weapons
According to the great military theorist, the Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), who is still considered a prominent specialist in the art of war, “a soldier is called, dressed, armed, trained, he sleeps, eats, drinks and marches only to fight at the right time and place. " A few months ago, in France, as well as in the USA, China, Israel, Great Britain and Russia, the initialization, loading of memory and preparation of the soldier began to penetrate the computers of the enemy and throw a logic bomb only so that he could fight in the so-called "information war ", Which is already openly conducted between the world's largest powers.
The French army recently crossed the line where the line of defense ends and begins an active offensive in the framework of a virtual war. Six laboratories and at least one of the French Air Force units were ordered to start developing "digital weapons" that can be used to conduct "offensive operations" in the event of a coordinated enemy attack on government websites, internal networks of public administration and critical information systems of the country.
Viruses, Trojans and Spyware are developed legally
This information became public at the world's largest exhibition of armaments for the ground forces "Eurosatori 2010", held from 14 to 18 June in Paris, and was also announced by the Secretary General of the Presidential Chancellery, Claude Gueant, at the Congress of the Supreme Council of the new Center for Military Strategic Studies, created by Nicolas Sarkozy.
The French military apparatus has begun developing viruses, Trojans and spyware that infiltrate users' computers without knowing it. All this is necessary in order to be able to "neutralize the enemy's centers from within", "attack the enemy directly in the zone of aggression with the help of offensive operations", as well as "pursue and destroy the aggressors." Such tasks were set during the development of the strategic concept in the new "White Paper on Defense" (French doctrine on defense and national security), issued in 2008.
Six state-controlled private laboratories CESTI have been commissioned to develop digital weapons. Under French law, an attempt to enter someone else's information system or destroy it is considered a criminal offense. Nevertheless, the General Secretariat of National Defense of France has found a loophole in the law: CESTI laboratories, as part of their work on protection systems against hacker attacks, have the right to develop "tests for penetration into the information system." And in order to carry out such experiments in practice, they can create and maintain "digital offensive weapons."
French Foreign Intelligence employs about 100 professionals annually
On the other hand, digital offensive weapons are reportedly being developed by at least one of the specialized units of the French Air Force at 110 Air Base in Crail, north of Paris. The Directorate General for External Security of France (DGSE) has received an order to hire about 100 engineers per year in order to develop algorithms for penetrating third-party servers. First of all, specialists in the field of downgrading (who can imperceptibly replace a secure protocol with a less secure one), “reverse comprehension” (analysis and recovery of enemy encryption algorithms), and search for vulnerabilities in secure access systems are in demand. Only applications from candidates sent by regular mail are considered
Thales is in talks with NATO to create a cyber bunker
We can only speculate about what is really happening in the world classified as "top secret". Nevertheless, some information still leaks out. For example, the French high-tech giant Thales does not hide that it is negotiating with the government of France and NATO about the possibility of deploying cyber bunkers Cybels and Nexium in the military sphere. “It will cost France several hundred million euros,” said French Navy Colonel Stanislas de Maupeou, Cyber Defense Officer at Thales and a former member of the French General Secretariat for National Defense.
Understanding what the armies of the United States, China, Great Britain, France, Russia and Israel are actually working on is helped by what the secretary general of the Elysee Palace, Claude Gueant, describes as "sharpness of mind" and "the ability to analyze and correctly interpret invisible signals sent by our invisible and multifaceted enemies."
The destruction that cyberattacks can lead to is quite comparable in scale to the catastrophic consequences of real bombing.
Various scenarios
The main minds of general staffs are developing three main scenarios for waging cyber warfare.
The first and most dangerous is an attack on the so-called SCADA, that is, information management systems for the most important state facilities: the nuclear industry, railways and airports. The military departments reasonably assume that the devastation that such attacks can lead to "in the next fifteen years", according to the "White Paper on Defense" of France, is quite comparable in scale with the catastrophic consequences of real bombing.
The second scenario involves an attack on key Internet resources: websites and internal networks of government agencies (presidential administration, police, tax authorities and hospitals). Hacking these systems will inevitably lead to chaos and a decline in the country's prestige in the eyes of fellow citizens and foreign states.
The third scenario involves the use of some cyberattack methods to increase the effectiveness of traditional military operations.
Until now, many large civilian corporations have used cyber bunkers such as Cybels and Nexium in their information structures. These are systems that analyze all incoming and outgoing information flows in real time and are capable of automatically detecting up to 75 million “events”. Based on these “events,” hundreds of millions of processes are scanned to determine if they qualify as an attempted attack. As a result, 85 “hypothetical attacks” are selected daily and analyzed more thoroughly. Of these, from 4 to 10 "events" are sent daily for additional checks, which are carried out by 400 engineers, located, for example, in the "cyber bunkers" of Thales.
For private enterprises, such a system provides a real opportunity to defend against hacker attacks. For military structures, digital warfare centers provide a strong rear capable of deterring attacks from armored servers in real time, detecting a chain of zombie computers remotely controlled from a single point, identifying the attacker and counterattacking.
According to Stanislas de Maupeou, "cyberspace has become a battlefield, one might even say a primary battlefield, because today the actions of a government or army on a real battlefield are completely dependent on digital networks."
According to several media outlets attending the Annual Information Security Conference (SSTIC), which took place on June 9 in Rennes, France, Bernard Barbier, CTO of the Directorate General for External Security of France (DGSE), said that France is 10 years behind China and has reaffirmed the government's intention to do everything it can to close the gap. This is indeed the case. And since most of the offensive operations are prohibited by law, they will be carried out in disguise and, if possible, from the territory of other countries.
The most famous cyberattacks
2003 Titanium Rain
In 2003, US government and military websites experienced a series of cyberattacks dubbed Titanium Rain. Then the sites of NASA and the Lockheed Martin corporation suffered. China was suspected of the attack.
2007 Russia vs. Estonia
In May 2007, the websites of Estonian ministries, banks and the media experienced unprecedented attacks. Presumably, the flurry of attacks was Russia's response to the relocation of the monument to Soviet soldiers in Tallinn. Cyber attacks on Estonian websites have led to the need to create a global cyber defense system, which has been implemented by US and NATO military specialists.
2008 Russia vs. Georgia
During the Russian peacekeeping operation in Georgia, many Georgian government websites were hacked using a version of the Trojan, BlackEnergy. Russia, which was suspected of organizing this attack, managed, in particular, to take control of the website of the President of Georgia, on the main page of which a photo-collage appeared, consisting of photographs of Mikhail Saakashvili and Adolf Hitler.
2009 Iraq
US soldiers in Iraq captured a Shiite radical militant and found on his computer a series of photographs taken by flying spy robots. According to experts, the pirates took control of the information system for the transmission of images.
