Threat from cyber operations to increase

THE cyberattack on Transnet is a wakeup call for all our financial and industrial institutions. Hackers acting alone or as part of hacker groups can leverage widely available hacking tools to conduct cyber operations.

The threat from cyber operations will increase in the years ahead, even with extensive information security.

Cyber warfare is a tangible and relevant national security threat. The grim truth is that various critical infrastructures of our country are being stealthily targeted by dangerous forces operating in the realms of cyberspace where digital footprints are difficult to neutralise. If this was armed combat, then we would be fighting World War III.

The critical question that remains unanswered is, if a sophisticated cyberattack does not result in physical damage or injury, can it nevertheless amount to an armed attack when it generates severe noninjurious consequences? Nations and major industrial institutions fail to realise that we are all at war, with an insidious enemy whose digital venom transcends international frontiers. This war has rendered conventional and nuclear weapons obsolete. This weapon of 21st-century warfare has lasting effects that are felt from the whisper produced by the click of a computer mouse.

In a strict legal sense, cyberattacks from any front may in certain circumstances constitute the use of force. The judgement by the International Court Of Justice in the case of Nicaragua v US, if liberally interpreted, could classify cyber attacks as an “armed attack”.

Cyber hackers have broken into systems once considered impregnable and secure from intrusion. They have implanted Trojans and viruses into different computers to make them vulnerable. During June 2021, there were 9.8 million records breached globally.

Hackers globally attack computers with internet access every 39 seconds. Unless nations secure their institutions, the globe will witness a Pearl Harbour or a 911 cyberattack of frightening proportions.

FAROUK ARAIE | Gauteng