The rise in cyber attacks continue to increase in frequency and sophistication. Attacking the source of the cyber attacks is illegal, but in instances where the source is known and there is no collateral damage it may be occurring under the guise of active-defence.
Due to the rumoured use of active-defence, this issues is one of the core elements to be discussed at the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference on 14/15 September 2011 in Canberra. A roundtable at the conference will examine:
- If a commercial entity is under attack, is defence their only defence? Can they undertake offensive actions, such as probing, scanning, mirror attacks, extensive profiling?
- What are the responsibilities for information disclosure? As all participants in the eCommerce chain become more sophisticated, telling people that their banking and/or ATMs are down because of unexpected technical difficulties will become less believable over time - if under attack, how much should be disclosed to the public, and when Where is the public/private sector boundary for information warfare?
- How much help should the government give, especially if it won’t allow in law the private sector to operate offensive capabilities? What if the entity under attack also houses/supports public sector information via an outsourcing agreement? What if the entity is cloud- based?
Two leading US experts are discussing these issues at the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference on 14/15 September 2011. They are:
- Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of The SecDev Group and a Senior Scholar at the Canada Centre for Global Security, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. He is the co-founder and Principal Investigator of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor. He is a co-author of the Ghostnet, Shadows in the Cloud and Koobface investigations examining advanced cyber-espionage and cyber-crime networks; and contributing author and editor of Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights and Rule in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2010).
- James Farwell is an attorney, political consultant, and since 9/11 has acted as a consultant to the U.S. Special Operations Command and other areas of the U.S. Department of Defense as an expert in strategic communication.
Conference Chair: Athol Yates, Exectuvie Director, Australian Security Research Centre, 0402 419 583.
Information at www.safeguardingaustraliasummit.org.au or contact 02 6161 5143, admin@securityresearch.org.au.