U.S. reveals plans to hit back at cyberthreats
The U.S. Air Force Cyber Command is developing capabilities to inflict denial of service, confidential data loss, data manipulation, and system integrity loss on its adversaries, and to combine these with physical attacks, according to a senior U.S. general.
Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a U.S. military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the U.S. Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force’s Barksdale base, told zdnet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure.
“Offensive cyberattacks in network warfare make kinetic attacks more effective, (for example) if we take out an adversary’s integrated defense systems or weapons systems,” Elder said. “This is exploiting cyber to achieve our objectives.”