Kadner: Stuxnet and the harsh realities of cyber wars

Stuxnet. That odd-looking word seems strange indeed, but it’s familiar to people who know that our country has been actively involved in cyber warfare for some time now.

Called the world’s first digital weapon, Stuxnet is widely believed to have been created in a super secret program by the United States and Israel under the administration of President George W. Bush. It was designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

It reportedly was deployed. It worked. Several centrifuges self-destructed.

I mention all of this because when I ask my friends if they have ever heard of Stuxnet, the unanimous answer has been, “No.” Yet, its existence has been widely reported in recent years.

Americans, I believe, simply don’t care, even if it is the sort of thing that would make a great spy thriller and video game.

There’s a new interest in cyber warfare in this country now because the Russians are accused by the CIA of seeking to influence the outcome of U.S. presidential election this November.

Donald Trump dismissed such allegations as nonsense. He seems to believe the intelligence agencies are primarily concerned about Russian hacking because they want to reverse the outcome of the presidential election, or at least undermine his authority to govern.

The fact is that long before Russian hackers invaded Democratic National Committee computers and distributed embarrassing emails, the Chinese were hacking American corporations, stealing technological secrets.

The Chinese government has denied authorizing these hacks.

But the U.S. Justice Department has called the theft of corporate secrets “The Great Brain Robbery.” The economic impact on this country has been estimated in the billions of dollars.

In the meantime, there have been several hacks into U.S. government computers, with the pirates downloading the personal information of thousands of American employees.

NSA officials have publicly testified that Russia, China and perhaps one or two other countries have the capability to shut down the U.S. power grid, or disrupt water distribution.

The fact is, we can do the same to them and may, in fact, have long ago installed worms in their computer systems in case their activation was ever needed.

Yet, our country has done a lousy job preparing the American public for cyber warfare though the battle has raged for more than a decade.

There have been numerous attacks on U.S. defense contractors and secrets have been stolen.

Our government has issued repeated warnings to foreign governments, including the Chinese and the Russians. Of course, the question ultimately becomes, what are we as a country willing to do about it?

If Russia and China were sending troops across the Canadian and Mexican borders to invade our nation, our country’s military reaction would be swift and deadly.

But this is something different. Repeated incursions into American territory have been ignored.

Or have they? I can’t say that with any certainty because I, like all Americans, would like to believe the U.S. already has retaliated forcefully and secretly to cyber attacks on our country.

Yet, the evidence seems pretty clear that whatever counter measures we have deployed failed to get the attention of either the Chinese or the Russians.

If the Russians indeed attempted to influence the outcome of our presidential election, that is a direct assault on the integrity of the democratic process.

What is needed is a credible cyber deterrent, just as the U.S. relied on nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. The threat of mutually assured destruction kept both sides from pressing the button.

It appears, for whatever reason, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no fear the U.S. will retaliate. In fact, he seems very confident that we will not.

Now the U.S. Congress is planning hearings to determine what exactly the Russians did and its impact on the election.

But more importantly, we have to decide what are we willing to do when foreign governments seek to undermine the American economy, steal the identities of American citizens and deliberately set out to undermine our elections.

Email: philkadner@gmail.com

Tweets by @CSTeditorials