Syria War Stirs New US Debate on Cyber-attacks

Local Editor

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Pentagon and the National Security Agency developed a battle plan that featured a sophisticated cyber-attack on the Syrian military and President Bashar al-Assad's command structure.

The Syrian military's ability to launch airstrikes was a particular target, along with missile production facilities. "It would essentially turn the lights out for al-Assad," said one former official familiar with the planning.

According to the daily that cited, "for Obama, such methods would seem to be an obvious, low-cost, low-casualty alternative.

But after briefings on variants of the plans, most of which are part of traditional strikes as well, he has so far turned them down, according to officials familiar with the administration's long-running internal debate."
The Obama administration has been engaged in a largely secret debate about whether cyber-arms should be used like ordinary weapons, whether they should be rarely used covert tools or whether they ought to be reserved for extraordinarily rare use against the most sophisticated, hard-to-reach targets.

Meanwhile, Obama has put the use of such weapons largely into the hands of the NSA, which operates under the laws guiding covert action.
But to many inside the administration, who insisted on anonymity when speaking about discussions over one of America's most highly classified abilities, Syria puts the issue back on the table. Obama's National Security Council met Thursday to explore what one official called "old and new options."
Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, declined to discuss "the details of our interagency deliberations" about Syria. "But we have been clear that there are a range of tools we have at our disposal to protect our national security, including cyber," she said, noting that in 2012 "the president signed a classified presidential directive relating to cyber-operations that establishes principles and processes so that cyber-tools are integrated with the full array of national security tools."

For instance, an attack could disrupt or shut down the navigational systems for Syria's aircraft, including the Russian-designed Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters.
But Syrian commanders would probably just shift to other weapons in their arsenal, like an array of rockets and missiles, including longer-range Scud missiles.

On the offensive end, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which follows these issues, assembled evidence in a report published late last year that the Syrians had used a "spear phishing" ploy, which gets the target to click on a link in an email, in this case videos of war atrocities, to identify people who are aiding the armed groups and get inside their computer systems.
And the Syrian Electronic Army has conducted strikes against targets in the United States over the past year, including the website of The New York Times.

Source: NYT, Edited by website team