Research question: As we dive into the 21st century are we moving away from conventional warfare such as guns, and stepping into a new form of cyber warfare?

I found a great article through ProQuest that relates to my research question. The article is from March 9, 1998 and it discusses the dangers that face the United States regarding cyber attacks. It goes into an interesting story about a high school student from Cloverdale, California that attempted to hack into the Department of Defense. The DoD said they have never seen “organized and systematic attack” before. Asked why the student attempted to attack the Pentagon, he said “It’s power, dude, you know, power.” This article shares a glimpse of what is coming to many parts of this country and to the world, in regards to cyber attacks/warfare.

Lately, there have been an outburst of news from many media outlets conveying a message that there are many cyber attacks targeting government agencies, companies, and individuals. It seems like a frequent event these days and it looks as if it’s all new, but it’s far from that. Cyber attacks have been around for well over a decade now and have been gaining steam, in terms of sophistication and frequency. There are different types of cyber attacks, spanning from the typical individual that is attempting to score few dollars, to state sponsored organizations intent to gain secret information from other governments. We have truly stepped into an era that makes anyone with a computer a vulnerable target for an attack. A cyber attack/warfare has the ability to cause great amount of damage to our financial sectors, power grids, communications, weapons and much more that threatens our national security. We are at the tipping point where governments and individuals will use the cyber world to conduct warfare. Conventional warfare with guns and bullets are costly, in terms of actual lives and money. To some extent, they also clearly reveal the identity of the parties involved, but with cyber warfare it makes it difficult to identify the parties involved, as they could be thousands of miles away with a computer. Government will be inclined to way their options when it comes to declaring the old conventional form of warfare or the new form of warfare.

I will be utilizing many articles that are available online to do an in-depth research on cyber warfare. I will go into many examples that showcase the defensive and offensive measures our government and other organizations have taken when it comes to this topic. I truly believe this topic that I raise will, in some way, touch all of us in our lifetime and is a serious issue that will need a great amount of discussion at the national and world stage.

Link:  http://search.proquest.com/docview/897676018/13C4474290C6F787F97/3?accountid=14541

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