Cyber experts warn of 'intelligent weapons'
ESTONIA: Quick advances in cyber war technologies could soon lead to
a new generation of so-called "intelligent cyber weapons" which top
global IT defence experts warn could be virtually unstoppable.
"Rapid developments in cyber (technology) might lead to intelligent
cyber weapons that are hard to control and it's practically impossible
to use formal methods of verifying the safety of intelligent cyber
weapons by their users," Enn Tyugu, IT expert at Tallinn's NATO Cyber
Defence Centre said at its fourth annual conference Thursday.
He also warned that programmes developed to counter attacks by
malwares like Stuxnet can act independently and could possibly
themselves spark conflicts.
"They are quite autonomous, and can operate independently in an
unfriendly environment and might at some point become very difficult to
control... that can lead to cyber conflict initiated by these agents
themselves," Tyugu said.
"Stuxnet and Flame have shown the side of cyber of which the average
user does not think of but which will bring a lot of challenges to all
experts who deal with critical infrastructure protection issues - IT
experts, lawyers, policy makers," Ilmar Tamm, Head of the NATO Cyber
Defence Centre told AFP Thursday.
"The number of cyber conflicts keeps rising and it is important to
understand who the actors in these events are, how to classify these
events and participants, and how to interpret all that," Tamm said,
noting Western leaders have been slow to become aware of even existing
cyber threats.
Experts at the conference noted that both China and Russia have
significantly upgraded their cyber-defence capabilities in recent years
by creating new IT units.
AFP |