CYBER STUDIES

CONCEPTUAL AND TECHNICAL ISSUES FOR CYBER STUDIES

Cyber studies is not conned to  historical abstraction there are many cases to examine than in other technological domains, such as the Nuclear and biological issues in which a paucity of events has not prevented the issue

Issue of study from thriving.

At most, the data gap will reduce the degree of Certainty of hypotheses; theorists should seek to maximize the leverage of their Claims by avoiding single case inferences and, where possible, drawing on the Variety of known cases. While the issue of government secrecy shrinks the pool of observable Cyber events and reduces available details about them, it’s true of all national security activity.

The following are issues concern the cyber studies

Cyber attack.

Cyber attack refers to the use of code to interfere with the functionality of a computer system for a political or strategic purpose. The first significant cyber attack reportedly occurred in 1982, when a so called logic bomb caused a Soviet oil pipeline to explode.

Cyber attacks are characterized by the attackers’ desire and capability to disrupt computer operations or to destroy physical assets via cyberspace thus, the incident does not constitute cyber attack. That is, the object may be to incapacitate the computer system itself or to degrade social, economic, or government functions dependent on its proper operation. Accordingly, two main types of cyber attack “effects” can be identified as:

 (1) Direct effects, which unfold within the logical environment of the target machine complex (e.g., destruction of nuclear centrifuges by manipulating their industrial controller)

 (2) Indirect effects, which hinder activity or functions that lie beyond the logical habitat of the compromised computer system but which rely on that system (e.g., interruption of the chemical process of uranium isotope separation necessary for the material’s weaponization).

Cyber exploitation.

Cyber exploitation refers to the penetration of an adversary’s computer system for the purpose of extracting (but not dealing) data One of the first major acts of cyber exploitation occurred in 1986 with a foreign breach of military and government computers in the United States.

 Another notable incident was the seizure by Chinese agents of several terabytes of secret U.S. government data in 2003. Essentially an intelligence-gathering activity, cyber exploitation relies on stealth and undertectability; thus disruption of the host system, which can lead to discovery and closure of access, defeats the purpose of exploitation

 One objective of exploitation may be to seize a nation’s military or industrial secrets, an activity known as “cyber espionage.” The technique can also be employed to acquire knowledge of an adversary’s computer systems to plan future cyber attacks, in which case exploitation is an element of a multistage cyber attack. Acts of cyber exploitation are often connected with cyber attack.

From a strictly technical standpoint, this makes sense. In cyber exploitation, the target

Computer system is itself subjected to “attack,” because access to privileged data usually requires aggressive measures to overcome computer defenses hence the tendency for the connection of terms within the technical community.

                                 JOHN,Cafrene