SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
cyberwar
Report Urges US-Russian Cooperation to Reduce Risk of Cyberattack Causing Nuclear War
"There is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities with nuclear weapons systems."
Sep 13, 2023
A report published Wednesday by a U.S. nonprofit group recommends cooperation between the United States and Russia aimed at reducing the threat of a nuclear war sparked by cyberattacks on nuclear weapon systems.
"In the modern nuclear age, there is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities and nuclear weapons systems," the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) asserted in the report, entitled Reducing Cyber Risks to Nuclear Weapons: Proposals From a U.S.-Russia Expert Dialogue.
The publication "highlights the critical need for a global diplomatic approach to address growing cyber risks, including, where possible, through cooperation between the United States and Russia."
"Despite significant current geopolitical tensions, the United States and Russia have a mutual interest in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons and an obligation to work together to do so based on the understanding that a cyberattack on a nuclear weapons system could trigger catastrophic and unintended conflict and escalation," the group said in an implied reference to strained relations amid Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
NTI drew from talks between U.S. and Russian nonproliferation experts that took place in 2020 and 2021 prior to last year's invasion of Ukraine.
"While acknowledging the challenges posed by an already charged political environment, the dialogue emphasized the importance of maintaining cooperation between the United States and Russia on key nuclear security issues, the value of unilateral risk reduction actions, and the benefit of developing ideas for cooperative steps to be advanced when the political situation improves," the organization noted.
The talks yielded six recommendations for the U.S. and Russia to reduce cyber risks:
- Refrain from cyber interference in nuclear weapons and related systems, including nuclear command, control, communications, delivery, and warning systems;
- Evaluate options to minimize entanglement and/or integration of conventional and nuclear assets;
- Continue to improve the cybersecurity of their respective nuclear systems, including through unilateral "fail-safe" reviews;
- Increase transparency and expand communications during periods of increased tension;
- Adopt procedures to ensure that any cyber, information, or other operation involving information and communications technologies emanating from the United States or Russia with the potential to disrupt another nation's nuclear deterrence mission be approved at the same level as required for nuclear use; and
- Eliminate policies that threaten a nuclear weapons response to cyberattack.
"Today, the United States and Russia still possess roughly 90% of the world's nuclear weapons and are also among the most proficient and active developers and users of information and communications technology (ICT)," the report notes. "Nuclear weapons policies, however, have not kept up with these technological advancements."
"Meanwhile," the publication continues, "the ubiquity of advanced digital ICT tools, as well as their fulsome functional benefits, have led both countries' nuclear weapons enterprises to incorporate digital technologies into their nuclear weapons, warning, command, control, and communications systems."
"Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives."
"With that modernization come vulnerabilities and openness to cyberattacks that could prompt dangerous miscalculations or accidents, leading to nuclear use," NTI stated, adding that "in the mid- to long-term, cybersecurity can be improved in the
context of ongoing nuclear weapons systems modernization."
"Mutual commitments can be codified through various political or legal formats," the report states. "Nuclear force modernization in each country presents an opportunity to clarify, isolate, and distinguish which systems are involved in nuclear deterrence missions from civilian infrastructure, critical national assets, and conventional warfighting systems."
"Modernization also provides opportunities to improve system resiliency and upgrade cybersecurity measures and practices," the publication adds. "Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives."
The new report came a day after the U.S. Department of Defense published an unclassified summary of its 2023 Cyber Strategy, the first update in five years, in which the Pentagon stated it would "use cyberspace operations for the purpose of campaigning, undertaking actions to limit, frustrate, or disrupt adversaries' activities below the level of armed conflict and to achieve favorable security conditions."
The Pentagon added that it would "remain closely attuned to adversary perceptions and will manage the risk of unintended escalation."
Russia's war and U.S. support for Ukrainian efforts to oust invaders have heightened international calls for disarmament, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently warning that nuclear modernization and rising global mistrust is "a recipe for annihilation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Report Unpacks Dangers of Emerging Military Tech, From AI Nukes to Killer Robots
"While the media and the U.S. Congress have devoted much attention to the purported benefits of exploiting cutting-edge technologies for military use, far less has been said about the risks involved."
Feb 07, 2023
Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and hypersonic missiles pose a potentially existential threat that underscores the imperative of arms control measures to slow the pace of weaponization, according to a new report published Tuesday.
The Arms Control Association report—entitled Assessing the Dangers: Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In)Stability—"unpacks the concept of 'emerging technologies' and summarizes the debate over their utilization for military purposes and their impact on strategic stability."
The publication notes that the world's military powers "have sought to exploit advanced technologies—artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber, and hypersonics, among others—to gain battlefield advantages" but warns too little has been said about the dangers these weapons represent.
"Some officials and analysts posit that such emerging technologies will revolutionize warfare, making obsolete the weapons and strategies of the past," the report states. "Yet, before the major powers move quickly ahead with the weaponization of these technologies, there is a great need for policymakers, defense officials, diplomats, journalists, educators, and members of the public to better understand the unintended and hazardous outcomes of these technologies."
\u201cA new @ArmsControlNow report assesses the extent to which military use of emerging tech could result in an accidental use of nuclear weapons in a crisis, and provides a framework for curtailing the indiscriminate weaponization of such tech.\n\nAvailable at https://t.co/gPyDbcaOcd\u201d— Arms Control Assoc (@Arms Control Assoc) 1675774840
Lethal autonomous weapons systems—defined by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots as armaments that operate independent of "meaningful human control"—are being developed by nations including China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The U.S. Air Force's sci-fi-sounding Skyborg Autonomous Control System, currently under development, is, according to the report, "intended to control multiple drone aircraft simultaneously and allow them to operate in 'swarms,' coordinating their actions with one another with minimum oversight by human pilots."
"Although the rapid deployment of such systems appears highly desirable to many military officials, their development has generated considerable alarm among diplomats, human rights campaigners, arms control advocates, and others who fear that deploying fully autonomous weapons in battle would severely reduce human oversight of combat operations, possibly resulting in violations of international law, and could weaken barriers that restrain escalation from conventional to nuclear war," the report notes.
The latter half of the 20th century witnessed numerous nuclear close calls, many based on misinterpretations, limitations, or outright failures of technology. While technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are often touted as immune to human fallibility, the research suggests that such claims and hubris could have deadly and unforeseen consequences.
"The major powers are rushing ahead with the weaponization of advanced technologies before they have fully considered—let alone attempted to mitigate—the consequences of doing so."
"An increased reliance on AI could lead to new types of catastrophic mistakes," a 2018 report by the Rand Corporation warned. "There may be pressure to use it before it is technologically mature; it may be susceptible to adversarial subversion; or adversaries may believe that the AI is more capable than it is, leading them to make catastrophic mistakes."
While the Pentagon in 2020 adopted five principles for what it calls the "ethical" use of AI, many ethicists argue the only safe course of action is a total ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Hypersonic missiles, which can travel at speeds of Mach 5—five times the speed of sound—or faster, are now part of at least the U.S., Chinese, and Russian arsenals. Last year, Russian officials acknowledged deploying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles three times during the country's invasion of Ukraine in what is believed to be the first-ever use of such weapons in combat. In recent years, China has tested multiple hypersonic missile variants using specially designed high-altitude balloons. Countries including Australia, France, India, Japan, Germany, Iran, and North Korea are also developing hypersonic weapons.
\u201cDARPA\u2019s HAWC program is a wrap\u2026concluding with a successful @LockheedMartin #hypersonic missile flying more than 300 nautical miles and lots of data for the @usairforce. More: https://t.co/Yqq2Xl50jn\u201d— DARPA (@DARPA) 1675093457
The report also warns of the escalatory potential of cyberwarfare and automated battlefield decision-making.
"As was the case during World Wars I and II, the major powers are rushing ahead with the weaponization of advanced technologies before they have fully considered—let alone attempted to mitigate—the consequences of doing so, including the risk of significant civilian casualties and the accidental or inadvertent escalation of conflict," Michael Klare, a board member at the Arms Control Association and the report's lead author, said in a statement.
"While the media and the U.S. Congress have devoted much attention to the purported benefits of exploiting cutting-edge technologies for military use, far less has been said about the risks involved," he added.
The report asserts that bilateral and multilateral agreements between countries that "appreciate the escalatory risks posed by the weaponization of emerging technologies" are critical to minimizing those dangers.
"As an example of a useful first step, the leaders of the major nuclear powers could jointly pledge to eschew cyberattacks" against each other's command, control, communications, and information (C3I) systems, the report states. A code of conduct governing the military use of artificial intelligence based on the Pentagon's AI ethics principles is also recommended.
"If the major powers are prepared to discuss binding restrictions on the military use of destabilizing technologies, certain priorities take precedence," the paper argues. "The first would be an agreement or agreements prohibiting attacks on the nuclear C3I systems of another state by cyberspace means or via missile strikes, especially hypersonic strikes."
"Another top priority would be measures aimed at preventing swarm attacks by autonomous weapons on another state's missile submarines, mobile ICBMs, and other second-strike retaliatory systems," the report continues, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles. "Strict limitations should be imposed on the use of automated decision-support systems with the capacity to inform or initiate major battlefield decisions, including a requirement that humans exercise ultimate control over such devices."
"Without the adoption of measures such as these, cutting-edge technologies will be converted into military systems at an ever-increasing tempo, and the dangers to world security will grow apace," the publication concluded. "A more thorough understanding of the distinctive threats to strategic stability posed by these technologies and the imposition of restraints on their military use would go a long way toward reducing the risks of Armageddon."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mideast Cyberwar Continues to Claim More Victims
Hackers continued to hit targets in the Middle East today, with the Web sites for Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and the Israel Festival, as well as two Israeli hospital Web sites, coming under attack.
Last Monday, hackers targeted the Tel Aviv stock exchange, several banks, and El Al Airlines.
Jan 25, 2012
Hackers continued to hit targets in the Middle East today, with the Web sites for Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and the Israel Festival, as well as two Israeli hospital Web sites, coming under attack.
Last Monday, hackers targeted the Tel Aviv stock exchange, several banks, and El Al Airlines.
Palestinian Anonymous members took credit for today's attack on their Twitter account. Now, Israeli hackers are threatening retribution.
The Jerusalem Postreports tonight:
Israeli hackers told The Jerusalem Post they are planning to respond to a hacking attack which occurred overnight Tuesday on the websites of two Israeli hospitals.
The websites of the Sheeba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer and the Assouta Medical Center in Tel Aviv were struck with a distributed denial of service (DDOS), in which servers are flooded by false requests for information, making them unavailable to others.
"We saw that attack. Soon, a response will come," a member of the 'IDF Team' hacking group told the Post on Wednesday evening. [...]
Israeli hackers have indicated that they may not stick to simple DDOS attacks in future, but instead seek to cause long-term damage to the servers of financial, government, and security websites in the Arab world, in the event of further attacks on Israeli sites.
Ha'aretz reports:
Also on Wednesday, the website of the Israel Festival was brought down. Pro-Palestinian hackers wrote "Free Palestine" in several parts of the site, and featured an image of the Israeli and American flag burning.
The cyber war kicked off in early January, when a hacker calling himself "OxOmar" published online the credit card details of thousands of Israelis, after breaking into what he said were more than 80 Israeli servers.
He said he was then joined by a group calling itself Nightmare, and went on to paralyze several Israeli websites, including that of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israel's El-Al International Airlines.
Pro-Israel hackers, for their part, published the log-in details of 20,000 Arab Facebook users, and said they had taken down websites in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular