Cyber deterrence As mentioned earlier, the fundamentals of deterrence theories were forged during the Cold War. Consequently, their features were shaped in the unique landscape of that particular time in human history. There is no denying that implementing the principles of traditional deterrence in the emerging world of cyber warfare is far from trivial. Below is a brief reference to some of the much needed adjustments in the principles of nuclear deterrence when applied to the world of cyber warfare. Spectrum of deterrence First and foremost, cyber deterrence is required across a much greater spectrum than other weapons and actors (Jensen 780). Unlike the limited responses allowed by the catastrophic effects of a nuclear attack (in the post-World War II discussion of nuclear deterrence), cyber operations provide an actor with the ability to accomplish a broad spectrum of effects (Jensen 782), hence cyber deterrence is required to embrace a range of responses as well as the ability …show more content…
Since it is one of the biggest and most obvious problems associated with cyber operations, the issue of attribution has been highlighted and analyzed in numerous writings (see e.g. Libicki 43-51). Basically, attribution in the context of cyber operations refers to the inherent difficulty to accurately identify an attacker. One of the main causes for this difficulty is the fundamental architecture of the Internet: the building blocks of the Internet and the World Wide Web, like the TCP/IP protocol, were not designed with security or accurate identification in mind (Evron 123). Even pinpointing and designating a specific IP address or a computer that supposedly generated a cyber operation is hardly sufficient: the computer might have been hacked, used only as a transit or relay (proxy server), remotely controlled by another (either as a "zombie" computer as part of a botnet or in some other manner) and so forth (Evron