Clarke II: Cyber-Offensives Not Good Idea

Government Executive's Bob Brewin reports today that the Pentagon has come closer than ever to admitting it will engage in offensive cyberwarfare if provoked, including knocking out satellites and networks operated by adversaries. That's not a good idea, says Richard Clarke, former special advisor on cybersecurity for President Bush who spoke today at the inaugural Source Boston security conference, according to an InfoWorld article.

"The concept of mutually assured destruction that was employed by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War to discourage nuclear attack doesn't port well to the world of cyberspace, but the president's advisors seem to think that it will, he said," InfoWorld reports.

Says Clarke:

In cyber-space, who knows what capability anybody has? It's much more important to know what you could do if someone launched an attack on the U.S., how much could [someone] really shut down and what would be the effect, I suspect that the U.S. is much more vulnerable than other countries, because we are more wired and dependent on cyberspace. China has structured its infrastructure such that it can shut itself off, and create [its] own environment if it wants to; so it seems that there are asymmetries.

Clarke says the United States should focus more on telling American corporations and government agencies where common infrastructures and applications are vulnerable and how to patch them.