Battlefield Moves Online Forming Cyber Industrial Complex

April 13, 2016

Undoubtedly, in recent decades many processes and products have moved online. Warfare may not be exempt from this migration. Meet The Cyber-Industrial Complex: Private Contractors May Get $7B Windfall From Pentagon’s Cyberwar On ISIS, an article from International Business Times, tells us more. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently confirmed U.S. development of digital weapons and training of online soldiers. According to the article,

“Cyberwar threatens to cause havoc worldwide, but it could be good for the U.S. economy and a handful of publicly listed companies. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, as part of a $582.7 billion budget request to fund his department through 2017, recently said nearly $7 billion of that will be allocated toward improving the military’s ability to develop and deploy offensive cyberweapons. That’s great news for a number of private contractors, who stand to benefit from the spending., and the highly skilled individuals they may end up hiring.”

The article explains these capabilities have been utilized by the U.S. in the past, such as the Kosovo war, but now the U.S. is claiming these tools and tactics. It is an interesting leap to visualize what attacks will evolve to look like on an online battlefield. Equally interesting is the article’s point about conflict being a business opportunity for some; it may also be true to say more problems, more money.

 

Megan Feil, April 13, 2016

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

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