Wars of the future
The latest computer virus to attack Iran gives us another glimpse into the wars of the future: spying software in place of human agents, deadly viruses instead of assassins, covert operations instead of pitched battles.
The program "Flame," exposed this week, is exactly this kind of future warfare. Russian software company Kaspersky, a leader in the field of cyber-defense, may have boasted of its discovery of the program, but those in the know could see that behind their boastful claims lies a massive failure: Flame has been active since 2007 in hundreds of protected computers, overcoming more than 43 different security barriers and advanced cyber-defense software without being detected. It recorded audio and video output, photographed and copied data and sent the information to its operators completely under the radar. Even when first detected, in March 2010, it took dozens of experts from Kaspersky more than two years to break open its code. The company admits even now that it will take more than a year until Flame is fully understood.
Without a doubt Flame and Stuxnet before it belong to the premier league of viruses. Cyber experts speculate that a team of more than 100 state-backed programmers worked on Flame. The virus was apparently spread using USB drives, known to infect only "marked" computers while leaving others alone. Based on those observations, Flame completed its mission long before its exposure. It's fair to assume that whoever achieved such technological superiority five years ago is already a generation or two ahead today deep inside target computers responsible for managing the next war.
In this new type of warfare, Israel is a central player. With or without any connection to Stuxnet or Flame, we are among the leaders in cyberwarfare in both defense and offense, and stand alongside China, the U.S. and Russia. This capability is meant to provide Israel with the information that could prevent the next war, or at least have Israel better prepared for it. From this point of view members of the Israel Defense Force's 8200 intelligence unit and the Mossad are no less warriors than those in the IDF's elite combat units. They are at times able to defeat an enemy without physical contact.
All the statements made Tuesday on our behalf served no purpose and were harmful. This kind of war needs to be left to computers, not ministers. With all due respect to boastful rhetoric, a 20-megabyte program knows how to do this job a whole lot better.
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