On many levels, the Internet encourages anonymity, and when it comes to cyber-attacks, the key is attribution: putting a name and a face to the perpetrator.
Attribution, say security experts, will not only help fight cyber crime, but also rein in the global cyber arms proliferation.
“The dark net has become a market place for networking of criminal networks under the cloak of anonymity. You can today get a machine gun delivered to you within 24 hours of ordering it online. This only says that the gun in already in your city and the networks are coming together. There are several portals that prompt you to contribute to the IS without being traced, or so do they think. But these are increasingly being tracked,” said Silvino Schlickmann Jr., Director – Cyber Crime Directorate, Interpol. “Attribution is key, and we at Interpol have placed it at the centre of a global strategy to fighting cyber-crime,” he said.
But it’s not just the non-State actors on the offensive in cyber-space.
Frederick Douzet, Castex-Chair of Cyber Strategy, Institute of National Defense Studies, Paris, said that at least 30 countries today boast of offensive cyber capabilities. “We might probably be in a time of cyber arms race. There is a concern about proliferation of these offensive tools, as there is a risk of transfer, leak, being stolen or sold to both State and non-State actors. The peculiarity of cyber arms is that they can be reused by even the target of the attack against the source itself. One American intelligence report from 2013 talks of how one of their cyber weapons helped Iran learn from them and improve their cyber offensive,” she said.
The debate on cyber arms increasingly resembles the gun control debate, she pointed out.. “Attribution and accountability are key to rein in the cyber arms race and proliferation. I hope we don’t need a catastrophe to wake up to the necessity of reining in cyber arms proliferation,” said Ms. Douzet.
