Cyber Espionage: An Overview
Spying for political or economic gains is not new and it is practised since ancient times. Chanakya who is otherwise known as Kautilya in his book Arthashastra emphasizes the importance of spying and how it gives a competitive advantage. Not much has changed even after the passing of many centuries. During Cold War, both the United States and Soviet Russia had a network of spies to transmit intelligence including information about nuclear weapons, and many times it proved to be an advantage.
From Kautilya to the present times, spying has evolved, with the revolution and development in technology. In this digital era, the act of spying has become much more sophisticated, where states intrude into adversary or ally’s system and remain undetected to steal as many as information as possible. This enables the states to gather classified information and at times raw information can be processed and analyzed to produce intelligence. This has given birth to a new form of warfare which is popularly referred to as information warfare.
The involvement of non-state actors makes it more complex, they might act on their own or even be backed by states. With the exponential growth of internet penetration, cyber espionage can have dire consequences and have an impact on national as well as an individual’s security.
Spying the adversary’s system might give information regarding the new technologies, military establishments and weapon systems. This information will enable the adversary to counter effectively, reverse engineer and develop much more sophisticated systems. Spying on the financial market to obtain valuable information and use it against the state may have a detrimental effect on the economy. Hence cyber espionage has a huge impact on the security and integrity of the nation.
The US National Security Agency was involved in a mass surveillance program known as ‘prism’ where they collected millions of telephone records. This was revealed by Edward Snowden a former CIA system analyst. This incident had a greater impact and changed the idea of national security.
In recent years, it is observed that China’s involvement in various cyber espionage activities around the world, including stealing Google’s Source code and the designs of the F35 fighter plane. In 2007, Lockheed Martin reported that hackers from China were behind the stealing of technical documents of F35. China was also accused of using this information to build their J20 fighter and hence its resemblance with F35.
To counter spying, countries are building much more sophisticated systems, but no matter how secure the system is, attackers find a way to intrude. Hence, a resilient approach is needed and also counterintelligence may prove effective.