Cybersecurity

By the end of the twentieth century the internet dominated the global communication landscape. In 1993, only about 1 percent of telecommunications networks sent information over the internet, but by 2000 over 51 percent of these networks did. By 2007 the internet conveyed over 97 percent telecommunications information. In 2024, an estimated 67 percent of the global population were internet users. The internet continues to grow in the twenty-first century, propelled by massive amount of online information, commerce, entertainment, as well as widespread adoption of social media across the world.

Cyberspace is a key aspect of modern life, with broadband signals, wireless networks, local networks in schools and businesses, and heavy use of the power grid to support millions of computers, tablets, and cell phones. The military and intelligence networks protecting the United States depend on the internet for their operations, which is now a permanent, key feature of most countries’ communications networks. Cybercriminals have grown as sophisticated as the computer systems worldwide, and during the first decades of the twenty-first century cybersecurity became a major concern for nearly every government around the world, along with any private business with an internet presence.

Background

Cyberattacks are as old as the internet and cybercriminals operate with a variety of motives; financial gain and political reasons are two of the most common. Some accounts state that Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of Apple Computer, were originally “phone phreaks” in the 1970s who hacked computerized telephone systems so they could make free long distance calls. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named hacker Kevin Mitnick a top target in the late 1990s when he broke into academic and corporate computer systems and caused millions of dollars in damage. Virus creators have produced increasingly more sophisticated and harmful computer viruses, morphing from the relatively harmless “Melissa” and “I Love You” viruses of the late 1990s and early 2000s to the Stuxnet virus of 2009, which was designed to damage Iran's uranium enrichment facility. Viruses and other cyber threats, such as identity theft, have fostered the multibillion dollar security software industry.

A major form of hacking called denial of service (DoS) is designed to paralyze websites, financial networks, and computer systems by flooding them with data from outside computers. A fifteen-year-old Canadian boy orchestrated the first documented DoS attack in 2000 against several e-commerce sites, including eBay and Amazon, shutting some down and disrupting others at an estimated cost of $1.7 billion dollars. While a number of damaging DoS attacks occurred throughout the 2010s, including a 2018 attack on GitHub, a popular code management service, organizations were also able to stop a number of other attacks during this time thanks to improved security measures. For example, in June 2022, tech giant Google was able to stop the largest DoS attack ever attempted up to that point in history.

Computer hackers and thieves have increasingly targeted government and private web networks in the United States. In 2006, the Pentagon reported six million attempts to break into its networks. This number has increased yearly, including a successful attempt supposedly originating in China to hack into the $300 billion dollar Joint Strike Fighter project and copy data about its design and electronics systems. According to computer experts, computer criminals in China and Russia had infiltrated the US electrical grid by the 2010s by installing software capable of damaging it at any time. By the 2020s cyberattacks had also been used in direct support of armed military operations. For example, Russia conducted cyberattacks against Ukraine prior to invading the country in February 2022 and continued to stage cyberattacks on Ukraine's infrastructure as the conflict dragged on into 2023.

Hackers also prey on ordinary citizens. News stories routinely report hackers raiding computer networks for Social Security numbers, banking and credit card information, and other information useful for identity theft. In 2005, hackers breached the University of California, Berkeley computer system and stole the Social Security numbers of 97,000 students; the same thing happened again in 2009. Identity theft rose throughout the first decades of the twenty-first century; in 2021 alone, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a consumer protection agency, received 1.43 million consumer identity theft complaints, and financial losses from fraud totaled $6.1 billion. Other common forms of fraud reported that year, such as online shopping scams and imposter scams, were conducted mostly or exclusively online.

Overview

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama named cybersecurity as a serious economic and national security challenge and ordered a review of government efforts to defend US information and communications systems. Around this time, many other governments worldwide began taking note of cybersecurity as an area of concern. Obama accepted the recommendations of the Cyberspace Policy Review, which included appointing a high-level Cyber Security Coordinator. The Executive Branch of the government also vowed to work closely with US cybersecurity experts in state and local governments and the private sector. Their goal is to provide an organized and unified response to future cyberthreats, to strengthen public and private partnerships, find technological solutions to enhance US security and prosperity, and invest in the cutting edge research and development. The Cyberspace Policy Review also called for a campaign to promote cybersecurity awareness and digital literacy from boardrooms to classrooms and to improve the twenty-first century digital workforce. Obama stated that cyber policy be created and implemented in a way consistent with enduring the privacy rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution.

Following the Cyber Security Policy Review’s mandate, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) coordinated the interagency, state, and local government and private sector working groups to improve the cooperation between agencies and international partners during cyberattacks. In October 2009, the DHS launched the National Cyber Security and Communications Integration Center, a twenty-four-hour watch and warning center and the country’s principal hub for organizing cyber-response efforts and maintaining a comprehensive national picture.

In 2010, the DHS and the Department of Defense signed an agreement to cooperate to counter threats to critical military and civilian computer systems and networks. The agreement embedded Department of Defense cyber analysts within the DHS and DHS personnel within the Department of Defense’s National Security Agency.

Led by its US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), the DHS also forged vital partnerships with antivirus companies to develop and share threat potential, prevention, mitigation, and response information products. In 2011, US-CERT responded to more than 106,000 cyber security threats and released more than 5,000 viable cybersecurity alerts to public and private sector partners. Private sector organizations and companies are often targeted by cybercriminals for both financial gain and political reasons. In November 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered a massive data breach that rendered its computer systems useless. In the days following the initial attack, the hackers claiming responsibility for the breach posted reams of data to an anonymous internet posting board. Information leaked to the public included salary information, internal passwords, employee social security numbers, executive presentation slides, and a number of unreleased films. The attack and subsequent leaks appeared to be politically motivated, and some experts speculated that agents in or working on behalf of North Korea might have perpetrated the attack in protest of the pending release of Sony's The Interview (2014), a comedy in which two journalists are hired by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s, the issue of cybersecurity attracted increased attention due to a number of notable incidents. Some of these affected private corporations and involved either fraud or the theft of user data; for example, in 2015, a data breach affected dating website Ashley Madison, which was popular with users looking to engage in extramarital affairs, and led to a group of hackers releasing user data to the public. Incidents such as these highlighted the need for corporations and other private entities to take adequate steps to protect consumer data, and led to some calls for greater government oversight to ensure these protections were put in place.

Other incidents highlighted the vulnerability of key aspects of infrastructure to attacks conducted for either political reasons or financial gain. For example, a May 2021 ransomware attack managed to shut down the Colonial Pipeline, a key source of gasoline and jet fuel for the southeastern United States, even though the company, with the help of law enforcement authorities, paid the perpetrators a $4.4 million ransom. This attack led to fuel shortages in subsequent weeks and also led President Joe Biden to sign an executive order addressing a number of aspects of cybersecurity, including the establishment of a Cyber Safety Review Board and improving security and detection on existing systems.

In November 2023 a cyberattack allegedly carried out by operatives affiliated with the Iranian government hit a wide range of targets in the US, including the municipal water authority of the small city of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. This attack, which occurred in the context of the deadly renewed conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, targeted Israeli-made technology and came amid efforts by the US government to improve infrastructure cybersecurity. This effort proved challenging given the large share of private ownership of this infrastructure in the US.

Other groups continued to carry out ransomware and other cyberattacks for apparent financial motives. For example, in March 2024, a ransomware attack targeted the medical claims, payment systems, and other digital property of UnitedHealth Group, one of the biggest healthcare providers in the US. This attack, which some authorities suspected was carried out by ALPHV/Blackcat, was one of the most damaging cyberattacks on a US healthcare system in the country's history. Hackers associated with ALPHV/Blackcat were previously involved in a series of ransomware attacks on US casinos in September 2023.

Bibliography

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