[iwar] [fc:Russia's.'netwar'.capabilities]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-26 06:25:04
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:UK.security.details.'listed.on.web']"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Fatal.vision:.how.Bush.has.given.up.on.peace]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Message-Id: <200206261325.g5QDP4o15059@red.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 06:25:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Russia's.'netwar'.capabilities]
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW - JULY 01, 2002 
 

Russia's 'netwar' capabilities 
 
Tim Thomas 
 
Russia has been developing its CNO structures and capabilities in order
to prepare the country for offensive and defensive attacks. 
 
Over the past seven years, Russia's information technology theorists and
policy-makers have developed a set of organisational structures,
operating principles and concepts to assist with computer network
operations (CNOs) or netwar. 
 
These adjustments have enabled Russia to develop CNOs that differ in
some respects from those in the West, especially in the realm of
terminology.  Aleksander Starovoitov, a former director of the Federal
Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), has noted
that an information 'attack' could disable a country's entire electronic
control systems, including those of the armed forces and government
infrastructure.  The use of such a weapon, given its catastrophic
consequences, would resemble use of a weapon of mass destruction. 

 
Institutional structures
 
Several commissions, agencies, commercial organisations, and ministries
have been investigating or developing CNO.  The State Technical
Commission is responsible for information protection in the fields of
defence, politics, the economy, and other areas, to include countering
foreign technical intelligence collection.  The commission is directly
subordinate to President Vladimir Putin and has both certification and
licensing responsibilities for information technology. 
 
FAPSI, which is similar in function to the USA's National Security
Agency (NSA), is responsible for some CNO and has several regional
computer information centres.  Its chief function is to encode
government communications, but it also registers state databases. 
 
The Federal Security Service (Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti - FSB),
similar in purpose to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, also has a
directorate for computer and information security that is headed by
Boris Miroshnikov. 
 
Directorate R of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo
vnutrennykh del - MVD) is responsible for combating computer crime.  The
directorate was apparently closed down in June 2001; however, in July it
was reincorporated into the Directorate for Operational (Special)
Technical Measures of the MVD.  Directorate R tries to find and document
traces of criminal activity on the internet.  After that, operatives
attempt to find and detain the criminal.  Specialists are trained in
data protection, radio-electronics, and computer technology and criminal
investigations. 

 
It is not known which specific section of the General Staff of the Armed
Forces has responsibility for CNO, but the 8th Directorate is the most
likely location.  The armed forces do not have an unclassified version
of a document comparable to the US military's Joint Doctrine for
Information Operations, nor do the separate service branches offer
unclassified publications on the subject. 
 
The rising importance of information operations in the Russian military
is apparent from a variety of sources.  For example, the military's
professional journal Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal) has published
articles in the past five years on computer data security, information
support to operations, communications support to command and control,
and offered advice on installing local computer networks in units. 
Military Thought, another professional journal, initiated a special
column in 2001 called "Armed Forces Informatization" that discussed
several aspects of computer and automated control system operations. 
 
Appendix 19 of Russia's 2002 federal budget allocated millions of rubles
for national defence in the areas of automated systems and means of
control, communications, reconnaissance plus radio-electronic and
information countermeasures.  It is clear from other reports that CNO
courses have been set up at several radio-electronics institutes.  For
example, in a TV report describing training at the Voronezh Military
Radio-electronics Institute, one student, Aleksey Syanov, noted that
Russian computer specialists are in high demand throughout the world. 
He suggested that several countries are trying to hire Russian software
specialists because they "think in a special way and...  are therefore
able to solve non-standard problems using non-standard methods".  The TV
correspondent reported that an information warfare department had opened
at the institute; that in 2001 the first army computer hackers would
graduate from the department of automated control systems; and that data
protection and new information technologies are also studied at the
institute.  This emphasis on information operations at Russia's military
institutes is not unexpected.  A recent government commission on
military affairs listed information warfare as one of three priorities
for defence, along with Russia's strategic nuclear forces and the
development of precision-guided weapons. 
 
Information weapons
 
CNO issues were discussed in the 2001 report, Information Challenges to
National and International Security.  Professor Dr Vladimir Dyachenko, a
member of the General Staff, was listed as one of the authors,
indicating he may have had input to the military references in the
document along with several retired military officers.  The document
stressed how information and communications technologies (ICT) are
transforming the entire traditional paradigm of war and conflict
escalation, through the processing of vast amounts of data for new
command and control methods.  The means to conduct computer network
attack and defence were listed as information weapons, a term not used
in US policy documents. 
 
The report classified information weapons as offensive or defensive
according to their purpose.  Defensive information consists of
multilevel computer security systems and various systems of active
countermeasures to enemy information weapons.  An offensive weapon
destroys critical elements that support decision-making.  The latter
includes the points and bodies for command and control, the systems of
automation of control, communications, and specialised systems for
collection and processing of intelligence data and sensors. 
 
Russia is particularly concerned with information weapons that disable
or change the algorithms driving control system software.  These weapons
include:
 
· means of disabling all or specific portions of software of an
information system, possibly at a given point in time or with the onset
of a certain event in the system;
 
· means of covertly changing (even partially) the algorithm of a piece
of functioning software;
 
· means of collecting data circulating in the enemy information system;
 
· means of delivery and introduction of specific algorithms to a
specific place in an information system; and
 
· means to affect facility security systems. 
 
Another information weapon of concern to Russia is one that stops or
disrupts the functioning of data exchange subsystems, or affects the
signal propagation medium and functioning of algorithms.  These include:
 
·means to affect data transfer protocols of communications and data
transfer systems;

 
·means that affect the addressing and routing of algorithms;
 
·means that intercept and disrupt the passage of information in its
technical transfer channels; and
 
·means that provoke system overload by false requests for establishing
contact. 

 
A final information weapon of concern changes the data on command and
control systems to create a virtual picture of the situation that
differs from reality.  This includes:

 
·means to modify information stored in enemy information system data
bases;
 
·means to introduce false information and data to enemy information
systems; and

 
·means of security system disinformation. 
 
The document's English version editors, Dr Andrei Krutskikh and Dr
Dmitry Polikanov, proffered the following scenario for the employment of
information weapons in a regional conflict.  An information offensive is
carried out several hours before the beginning of combat operations. 
Systems controlling telecommunications, power supply and transportation
are disrupted.  The operation of computer systems of state agencies and
the armed forces are also suppressed.  At the moment of overflight of
aircraft with conventional and information weapons, air defence assets
are additionally disabled by using computer viruses and by activating
special 'plants'.  Electronic and electrical equipment as well as
computers are disabled using non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse
generators.  Agents and other methods, such as micro-organism cultures,
are introduced that eat electronic components, penetrating computer
networks and databases in advance before the beginning of combat
operations. 
 
An information operation against an opponent's organisational-technical
system can be developed either by changing its structure or by exerting
an effect on its resources: computer, software, information, and
communications resources or personnel.  This in turn will affect the
decision-making cycle.  Krutskikh and Polikanov noted that the network
struggle, also used in low intensity conflicts and by terrorists, is
more about using information capabilities than about the struggle
against enemy information structures; and implies the use of enemy
information infrastructure for one's own purposes. 
 
Russia has identified three problems that emerge during the
counternetwork struggle:

 
·the lowered efficiency of hierarchical state systems in combating
network structures;

 
·the requirement for a counterterrorist unit based on network principles
with broad decision-making powers;
 
·the need for an efficient use of network organisations and the
internet. 
 
'Electronic Russia'
 
Russia is working hard to improve its computer capabilities.  For
example, the Moscow Times reported on 7 August 2001 that Russia had
assembled the MVS-1000, a supercomputer capable of performing one
trillion operations a second and simulating nuclear explosions at speeds
greater than previously possible in Russia. 
 
Russian scientists said the computer would rank 30th on the list of the
world's 500 most powerful computers - IBM's ASCI White supercomputer is
capable of more than 12 teraflops (12 trillion operations per second). 
Russia has set aside US$20m for an MVS-5000, which would be five times
as fast, and could be ready by 2003.  The US hopes to have a 30-teraflop
computer by that time, Tass reported. 
 
To assist this development the government is planning to institute a
programme called 'Electronic Russia' between 2002-2010.  The purpose of
the programme is to create "an adequate institutional and legal
environment for the development of an ICT industry and support for the
effective interaction between the state and society through widespread
use of ICT." This recognises that the spread of ICT requires
developments in civil society that must be addressed, such as guarantees
of citizens to free and rapid access to information through the
internet. 
 
To date, the USA has accused Russia on more than one occasion of
conducting CNO against both its commercial and government/military
structures, with the Citicorp bank episode being the most famous. 
Russia has done likewise, and these incidents do not improve stability
but increase suspicion and even paranoia.  Clearly, it is important for
both sides to establish a dialogue over these issues, and to develop a
common terminology. 
 
Timothy L Thomas
 
Foreign Military Studies Office. 
 
The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Department
of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government. 


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Free $5 Love Reading
Risk Free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/3PCXaC/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:UK.security.details.'listed.on.web']"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Fatal.vision:.how.Bush.has.given.up.on.peace]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2003-08-24 02:46:33 PDT