Critical National Infrastructure, C4ISR and Cyber Weapons in the Digital Age

Abstract

Cyber-attacks have become more sophisticated over recent years with the different configuration types and various industry sectors have suffered from a range of these attack vectors resulting in some devastating outcomes. These have manifested in the shape of ransomware, malware, manipulation methods, phishing and spear-phishing. Bearing the brunt of many of these attacks has fallen in the area of critical national infrastructure (CNI) and for a variety of reasons from the sensitive data that can be accumulated through to knowing an impact in an area of CNI will have potential devasting effects or leave instability/uncertainty to become a risk. Whilst data breaches are serious incidents, in most organisations, there is a growing concern regarding attacks that are designed to have a more destructive effect, such as the Ukraine cyber-attack in 2015 that resulted in a shutdown of the power grid. Or perhaps the sophisticated attack a year later in Kiev that although causing a brief power blackout, had the manifestations of more concerns in how that attack was built and delivered. Or the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 that caused widespread chaos with healthcare institutions unable to carry out any tasks since access to data/systems was unavailable. These critical national infrastructure (CNI) attacks into sectors such as healthcare, energy, etc., cause data breaches/disruptions and are also able to leverage vulnerabilities in the industrial processes, especially where legacy infrastructure contains ICS and SCADA systems. Perhaps the state sponsored cyber-attacks cause the most concern as they tend to be at the more sophisticated level of the spectrum and maximize on amount of potential harm that is delivered. Hence why Command, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems (C4ISR) should have higher degrees of interoperability and be integrated and responsive in the current and accelerating climate of digital warfare. It is clear that cyber command has become as an important priority as the initiatives considered over land, sea and air and considerable investment is going into ensuring its development and advancement.