Richard Craig - Research Engineer
 
 

Cyber Defence

Cyber defence technologies and architectures

The publication of the UK Cyber Security Strategy in June 2009 made it clear that as the UK’s dependence on cyberspace grows, so the security of cyberspace becomes even more critical to the health of the nation and the protection of the national critical infrastructure.

Today, cyberspace is a domain that favours the attacker as the mind-set that dominates our approach to cyber defence is almost exclusively reactive. This is exemplified by the “catch up” approach to emerging viruses and other security threats where this ever increasing onslaught of attacks always seem one step ahead of the “defender”.

With the above in mind, the successful candidate Research Engineer will contribute via this project to the UK’s ability to proactively defend cyberspace by anticipating and avoiding threats through understanding the cyber situation, predicting adversarial actions, assessing potential impacts, and by implementing deterrence and effects based defensive methodologies.  The scope may include, but not be limited to the following activities:

  • examine what the cyber command and control (C2) hierarchy is and is not and the associated tasks;
  • identify technologies that will contribute to the execution of Cyber C2 tasks at each echelon level;
  • develop a C2 systems model.

Typical research questions to be answered are among others:

  • How could we mitigate vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure systems
  • How can we increase the perceived cost of attack (to the attacker) or reduce the benefits of attack and establish strong deterrents across this infrastructure
  • How can we anticipate cyber threats and conduct immediate evasive action having established a mature level of response readiness.

If you have an interest or opinon on any of these questions EMAIL ME!! :-)

The EngD

The EngD in Systems is a full-time, four-year programme, offering the experience of rigorous, leading-edge research within a business context.  The EngD researcher will spend approximately 75% of his/her time on the research project, with the remaining time spent on taught courses covering systems and business-related topics. The researcher will be registered at the University of Bristol.

Proactive Cyber Defence

means acting in anticipation to oppose an attack against computers and networks. It represents the dynamic between purely offensive and defensive action; interdicting and disrupting an attack or a threat’s preparation to attack, either pre-emptively or in self-defence. Proactive cyber defence will most often require operationalizing upstream security (security from the Cloud) mechanisms of the telecommunications/Internet providers.

Some of the compelling reasons for a proactive defence strategy are about cost and choice. Decisionmakers have few choices after an impact and that all of them are costly. Proactive defence is key to mitigating Operational risk.

A history lesson

In the Fifth century, B.C., Sun Tzu advocated “foreknowledge” or predictive analysis as part of a winning strategy. He warned that planners must have a precise understanding of the active threat and not “remain ignorant of the enemy’s condition.” The thread of proactive defence is spun throughout his teachings.

Psychiatrist Victor Frankl was likely the first to use of the term proactive in his 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning to distinguish the act of taking responsibility for one’s own circumstances rather than attributing one’s condition to external factors.

Later in 1982, the US Department of Defence (DoD) used “proactive” as a contrary concept to “reactive’ in assessing risk. In the framework of risk management ‘proactive” meant taking initiative by acting rather than reacting to threat events. Conversely “reactive” measures respond to a stimulus or past events rather than predicting the event. In military science, then and now considers defence is the science-art of thwarting an attack. Furthermore doctrine poses that if a party attacks an enemy who is about to attack this could be called active-defence. Defence is also a euphemism for war but does not carry the negative connotation of an offensive war. Usage in this way has broadened the term to include most military issues including offensive, which is implicitly referred to as active-defence. Politically the concept of national self-defence to counter a war of aggression refers to a defensive war involving pre-emptive offensive strikes and is one possible criterion in the ‘Just War Theory’. Proactive defence has moved beyond theory. It has been put into practice in theatres of operation.

In 1989, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, published by Free Press, transformed the meaning “to act before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis.” From that day “proactive” has been placed in opposition to the words “reactive” or “passive.”

Cyber

Cyber is derived from “Cybernetics”, a word originally coined by a group of scientists led by Norbert Wiener and made popular by Wiener’s book of 1948, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cyberspace typically refers to the vast and growing logical domain composed of public and private networks; independently managed networks linked together through the lingua franca of the Internet, the Internet Protocol (IP). The definition of Cyberspace has been extended to include all network-space which at some point, through some path, may have eventual access to the public internet. Under this definition, cyberspace becomes virtually every networked device in the world, which is not devoid of a network interface entirely. There is no air-gap anymore between networks.

The origins of Cyber defence undoubtedly evolved from the original purpose of the Internet which was to harden military networks against the threat of a nuclear strike. Later cyber defence was coveted by the tenets of information warfare and information operations.

The rapid evolution of information warfare operations doctrine in the 1990’s embraced a proactive pre-emptive cyber defence strategy.

Information Warfare

“Information Warfare is an emergent reality that comes from a self-organization process that has never seen before. The problem is that we talk about it using terms that have well known connotations. And it is difficult to talk about something completely new using words that bring with them specific understanding and expectancies. The early period of the automobile faced a similar situation. At one time it was called a “horseless carriage” as this was the only way to define its essential quality. The car is more than a carriage without a horse. This is the dilemma we face when we discuss Information Warfare. The danger is that the uses of familiar words misrepresent and mask the true extend of the revolution that will have to take place if we are to be able to retain a military capacity in a new physical, social and cognitive space.” – Dr. Garigue, 1994.

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace was published in February 2003 to outline an initial framework for both organizing and prioritizing efforts to secure the cyberspace. It highlighted the necessity for public private partnerships. Proactive threads include the call to deter malicious activity and prevent cyber attacks against America’s critical infrastructures.

The hype-cycle of discussion reached its peak in 1994. Present-day proactive cyber defence strategy was conceived within the context of the rich discussion that preceded it, existing doctrine and real proactive cyber defence programs that have evolved globally over the past decade. Dr. Robert John Garigue, a computational epistemologist and father of information warfare in Canada, published Information Warfare, Developing a Conceptual Framework. This was a landmark document in 1994 and genesis for proactive cyber defensive theory in Canada.

“Effective cyber defenses ideally prevent an incident from taking place. Any other approach is simply reactive. FedCIRC, the NIPC, the NSIRC, the Department of Defense and industry components realize that the best [action] is a pre-emptive and proactive approach.” – Sallie McDonald, the Assistant Commissioner for the Office Of Information Assurance and Critical Infrastructure Protection, Federal Technology Service and General Services Administration; in offering testimony with regard to the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and the Federal Computer Incident Response Center or FedCIRC; before The Subcommittee on Terrorism Technology and Government Information Committee on Judiciary and the United States Senate July 25, 2001.

The notion of a Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group (P2OG) emerged from a report of the Defense Science Board (DSB), 2002 briefing. The briefing was reported by Dan Dupont in Inside the Pentagon on September 26, 2002 and was also discussed by William M. Arkin in the Los Angeles Times on October 27, 2002. The Los Angeles Times has subsequently quoted US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld revealing the creation of the ‘Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group.’ The mission of the P2OG is reportedly to conduct Aggressive, Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations to interdiction and disruption the threat using: Psychological operations, Managed Information Dissemination, Precision Targeting, Information Warfare Operations, and SIGINT… The proactive defence strategy is meant to improves information collection by stimulating reactions of the threat agents, provide strike options and to enhance operational preparation of the real or virtual battle space. The P2OG has been recommended to be constituted of “one hundred ‘highly specialized people with unique technical and intelligence skills such as information operations, PSYOPS, network attack, covert activities, SIGINT, HUMINT, SOF, influence warfare/deception operations and to report to the National Security Council with an annual budget of $100 million.” The group would be overseen by the White House’s deputy national security adviser and would carry out missions coordinated by the secretary of defense or the CIA director. “The proposal is the latest sign of a new assertiveness by the Defense Department in intelligence matters, and an indication that the cutting edge of intelligence reform is not to be found in Congress but behind closed doors in the Pentagon.” – Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. DoD doctrinally would initiate a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on the basis of evidence that an enemy attack is imminent. Proactive measures, according to DoD are those actions taken directly against the preventive stage of an attack by the enemy.

Strike back doctrine aligns with pre-emptive and counter-attack tactics of a proactive cyber defence strategy.

The notion of ‘proactive defence’ has a rich history. The hype of ‘Proactive cyber defence’ reached its zenith around 1994. This period was marked by intense ‘hype’ discussions under the auspices of Information Warfare. Much of the current doctrine related to proactive cyber defence was fully developed by 1995. A number of programs were initiated then, and advanced to full operation by 2005 including those of hostile states. Meanwhile the public discussions diminished until the most recent resurgence in proactive cyber defence 2004-2008. Now most of the discussions around proactive defence in the literature are much less ‘proactive’ than the earlier discussions in 1994 or existing operational programs. ‘Proactive’ is often used to hype marketing of security products or programs, in much the same way that ‘extreme’ or ‘quality’ adjectives have been misused.

Cyber Security Useful Links

Below are links to related sites of interest, grouped by type.

  1. Trade groups, online expert communities and professional organisations
  2. Blogs
  3. Magazines and Online News
  4. RDAs
  5. UK Government Services and Public Initiatives
  6. Safety and Security Projects

Trade groups, online expert communities and professional organisations

Blogs

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Magazines and Online News

RDAs

UKGovernment Services and Public Initiatives

Safety and Security Projects

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