By Joshua Ophir, Y11
Cyber warfare is a type of war, however that takes places through electronic devices. It emerged with with the dot-com boom, in 2001. However today, it has become much more advanced, where specialized people can hack into virtually anything or any place. Business Insider describes that “The internet would be to modern warfare what the airplane was to strategic bombers during World War I”. This proves to be true, internet opens thousands of doors whether it be information, communication and much more. Although, there is a negative to all positives. This is the ability to hack, which is by definition to “gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer”. In the past, hacking was not feared because people did not have the resources to achieve it. But today, some people do. Groups like “Anonymous”, a terrorist group that uses hacktivism to present their ideas.
Cyber warfare has recently come to light because of a potential cyber attack on Wall Street, the most valuable stock exchange in the world. The state of New York decided to implement their own regulations, because of the lack of leadership on the federal level. Cyber attacks rapidly increasing: over 200 million financial records were hacked in 2017, a 937% increase from 2015. Because of this, New York decided to prepare themselves for a attack, specifically on Wall Street. The regulations turned a year old on March the 1st 2018.
The most targeted by cyber attacks are banks. For example, in 2014 5 hackers breached a server of JPMorgan Chase. They obtained 83 million customers’ personal information. Instead of stealing money from the personal accounts, they used emails to access a money scam. In 3 years, the hackers came out with over 100 million US dollars. The scariest part is that the attack started with the small theft of an employee’s login credentials with which following the domino effect ended with the loss of 100 million dollars.
The internet is a sacred creation however if used incorrectly, it can lead to the downfall of many people. Governments need to become aware of cyber warfare and take action, exactly like how people created bomb shelters when bombs were introduced
