what does this mean? NATO to use cyber weapons as aggressive, offensive deterrent

[JosephDredd]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/0...rtant-new-aggressive-stance-on-cyber-weapons/

NATO’s Little Noticed but Important New Aggressive Stance on Cyber Weapons

Not many people noticed it, but last month, NATO made a dramatic change in its cyber policy.

Not many people noticed it, but last month, NATO made a dramatic change in its cyber policy announced by the NATO Secretary General that arguably was the alliance’s biggest overall policy shift in decades. Having led the policy discussions in several NATO committees for the past four years on the use of cyber capabilities and cyber weapons, I can tell you this was the most hotly debated and contentious decision during my tenure at NATO.

In short, NATO embraced the use of cyber weaponry in NATO operations. This is a marked departure from NATO’s historical stance of using cyber only defensively, mainly to ward off incursions against its own networks. The more aggressive approach was intended as a strong message, primarily to Russia, that NATO intends to use the cyber capabilities of its members to deter attacks in the same way it uses land, sea, and air weaponry.

Russia’s provocative actions during the U.S. Presidential elections, its attempts to influence the French and German elections, and its blatantly aggressive, and on-going cyberwar against Ukraine were likely key determining factors which led the NATO defense ministers to adopt a more assertive stance.

On the surface, NATO’s cyber policy shifts might seem to be little more than incremental changes to its existing policy. However, the fact the alliance is standing up a cyber operations center to integrate cyber capabilities from alliance members sends a message to the world, especially Russia, that alliance members both possess and have the will to use their cyber capabilities and weaponry during military operations.

More info in the article. I'm curious to see what aggressively using cyber warfare as a deterrent would look like. We about to drop troll farms on Russia? Putin gets his own "gay Saddam" sex tape? We're going to create a generation of idiot Russian internet tards wondering why Russia regards America as an enemy and why shouldn't Putin just acquiesce to American interests?

Or is this a declaration of more stuxnet?

 

[Teppodama]

Gonna shutdown a countries infrastructure. Hack a nuclear plant? Shut down power grid? Screw with Hydro-Electric plants and dams, massive DDOS attacks...

 

[freaky]

Hack enemy drones, intercept or even change enemy messages to our advantage, ddos, virus, trojan, etc. Everything is automated nowadays. Many bombs are remotely controlled, so if we can hack into that, we can make them blow themselves up (including nukes).

Many fun things we can do. So the article is basically saying we've been using cyber as a defense mechanism, but now we're allowing it to be used offensively. Just ask yourself what were we using it to defend against? Same thing. Prevent hacks etc.

 

[Rod1]

 

[jimbob27]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...acecrafts-lost-sea-russian-rocket-fails-make/

Maybe we already hacked their new comsodrome.

 

[Rholk]

Cyber warfare is pretty fucking crazy at this point, you can sabotage entire nuclear programs, try to influence elections, steal blue prints etc etc...
And to get away with it all you have to do is just shrug it off and say "it wasn't us"

 

[Black Helicopters]

And to get away with it all you have to do is just shrug it off and say "it wasn't us"

Edit: lol I'm convinced this song influenced Russian decision making. Watch the first few seconds before the singing starts... "Say it wasn't you"

 

[Teppodama]

 

[HomerThompson]

It means that when NK puts the nukes on their missiles, that we're going to detonate them in their missile silos.

 

[freaky]

It means in the future we will let 2 AIs go at it and let them decide who wins.