US strikes take out cyber options

US strikes take out cyber options

The decision by U.S. President Trump to pull back from a retaliatory strike against Iran for the downing of a surveillance drone because there would be "too many deaths for a proportionate response" has been painted as a backtrack. Instead, "President Trump approved an offensive cyber strike that disabled computer systems used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to control rocket and missile launches."

"Though crippling [devastating] to Iran’s military command and control systems," reported the Washington Post, "the operation did not involve a loss of life or civilian casualties—a contrast to conventional strikes, which the president said he called back Thursday because they would not be 'proportionate.'"

That is not a backtrack, it's a game changer.

A physical missile strike against military targets in Iran would generate headlines and newsworthy images. It would kill scores of people. But in the end, it would make little difference to the standoff between Washington and Teheran. If, however, the reports are true and the U.S. has compromised Iran's networks to the extent that Teheran's core command and control systems are now vulnerable, that changes the dynamics completely.

Offensive cyber capabilities have long been the most sensitive and nationalistic of government activities. Despite all the media speculation, most government cyber spend remains focused on the defense of data and networks. And where offensive cyber attacks have taken place, they are not disclosed let alone publicized. For that reason, the reports on June 21 and 22 on the U.S. cyber attack are significant and not by accident.

The physical and digital are entwined. This decision by the U.S. to treat the disclosure of a cyber attack as it might a physical attack when in truth there is no footage and so no need, clearly shows this to be the case. The mix of physical and cyber, retaliating in one dimension for an attack in the other does the same.

We saw this in Gaza in May, when Israeli forces launched a physical strike in retaliation for a cyber attack in what was a world first. Israeli forces announced that they had "thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work."

And so to this attack and the Washington Post's report that "the [U.S. Cyber Command] strike against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was coordinated with U.S. Central Command," and that the attack had been in the works for weeks, not hours, and could have come any time after the attacks on the oil tankers for which the U.S. blames the IRGC.

There are no official details on the offensive cyber operation which was first reported by Yahoo News. A Department of Defense spokesperson told the media that "as a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning."

According to Yahoo News, the U.S. "digital strike" also targeted the "Iranian spy group... with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps" that supported the tanker attacks and which "has over the past several years digitally tracked and targeted military and civilian ships passing through the economically important Strait of Hormuz."

The U.S. cyber attack "imposes costs on the growing Iranian cyber threat, but also serves to defend the United States Navy and shipping operations in the Strait of Hormuz," Thomas Bossert, a former senior White House cyber official the Washington Post. "Our U.S. military has long known that we could sink every IRGC vessel in the strait within 24 hours if necessary, and this is the modern version of what the U.S. Navy has to do to defend itself at sea and keep international shipping lanes free."