Ethics of cyberwar attacks / Chapter in Cyber War and Cyber Terrorism
Abstract
Offensive cyberwarfare raises serious ethical problems for societies, problems that need to be addressed by policies. Since
cyberweapons are so different from conventional weapons, the public is poorly informed about their capabilities and may endorse
extreme ethical positions in either direction on their use. Cyberweapons are difficult to precisely target given the interdependence of
most computer systems, so collateral damage to civilian targets is a major danger, as when a virus aimed at military sites spreads to
civilian sites. Damage assessment is difficult for cyberwar attacks, since most damage is hidden inside data; this encourages massive
attacks in the hopes of guaranteeing some damage. Damage repair may be difficult, especially for technologically-primitive victim
countries. For these reasons, some cyberwar attacks may be prosecutable as war crimes. In addition, cyberwar weapons are expensive
and tend to lose effectiveness quickly after use as they lose their element of surprise, so the weapons are poorly cost-effective.
Description
This is a chapter in Cyber War and Cyber Terrorism, ed. A. Colarik and L. Janczewski, Hershey, PA: The Idea Group, 2007.
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