Conflicts in the Digital Age--Cyber Warfare

The Digital Age, specifically the growth of the Internet, has brought with it many positive aspects. The technology that people use today has exceeded many people's expectations. The Internet allows us to communicate with people across the world, complete a college level course, spend money we do not have on things we probably do not need, watch movies, download music and an infinite number of other things.

But with the good, also comes the bad. When so many people in the world have access to the Internet, it has to be almost expected that things are bound to go wrong. One negative aspect of the use of the Internet is cyber-warfare. Cyber-warfare and cyber-attacks are acts of stealing information from other people, companies or countries over the Internet, and obviously, some cyber-crimes are much more serious than others.

Cyber-warfare between the military forces or governments of two countries is probably the most dangerous of online attacks. The information stored in a military database of a particular country is secured for a reason: they do not want other countries to use their "secrets" against them. While the Digital Age has given military forces more possibilities to safely store information on say, weapons of mass destruction (in case they are ever needed), it has also raised the threat and opened the door for cyber-attacks on those military systems.

Because of the possibility of cyber-warfare, the United States has developed a way of identifying threats and determining which are harmful and which are harmless (or at least less harmful). According to an article, Confronting the Cyber Threat, on the website, Council on Foreign Relations, "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security designates at least five primary cyber threat sources...most observers acknowledge the greatest and most persistent threats are cyberespionage and cybercrime."

Cyberespionage is the act of obtaining secrets or data from groups such as the government while cybercrime is any crime involving a computer against the government, corporations or individual people. When the U.S. looks for cyber-attackers or threats, they focus primarily on the following: National Governments, Terrorists, Industrial Spies and Organized Crimes, Hacktivists, and Hackers. They also use what is called a GOA Threat Table, which organizes the specific kind of cyber-threat and what exactly that threat means.

While there has not been an actual cyberwar launched against the United States, it is definitely a possibility. After doing some research on how the U.S. seeks to protect its government, military and the nation as a whole, I do not personally feel threatened, nor do I think that the country is in danger of such attacks. At least not yet. My only fear is that as time goes on, technology will continue to grow and expand, and attackers will be more knowledgeable when it comes to the Internet. As long as the U.S. security forces keep up with the changes that are to come from the Digital Age and beyond, I feel that cyber-warfare is not something of a threat at this moment.