Information Warfare - Overview

Overview

Information warfare can take many forms:

• Television and radio transmission(s) can be jammed.
• Television and radio transmission(s) can be hijacked for a disinformation campaign.
• Logistics networks can be disabled.
• Enemy communications networks can be disabled or spoofed.
• Stock exchange transactions can be sabotaged, either with electronic intervention, by leaking sensitive information or by placing disinformation.

The US Air Force has had Information Warfare Squadrons since the 1980s. In fact, the official mission of the US Air Force is now "To fly, fight and win...in air, space and cyberspace," with the latter referring to its Information Warfare role.

As the US Air Force often risks aircraft and aircrews to attack strategic enemy communications targets, remotely disabling such targets using software and other means can provide a safer alternative. In addition, disabling such networks electronically (instead of explosively) also allows them to be quickly re-enabled after the enemy territory is occupied. Similarly, counter information warfare units are employed to deny such capability to the enemy. The first application of these techniques was used against Iraqi communications networks in the first Gulf War.

Also during the 1991 Gulf War, Dutch hackers stole information about U.S. troop movements from U.S. Defense Department computers and tried to sell it to the Iraqis, who thought it was a hoax and turned it down. In January 1999, U.S. Air Intelligence computers were hit by a co-ordinated attack (Moonlight Maze), part of which came from a Russian mainframe. This can not be confirmed as a Russian cyber attack due to non-attribution - the principle that online identity may not serve as proof of real world identify.