analysisUpdated: Dec 27, 2020, 18:12 ISTThe SolarWinds hack – a cyber espionage campaign compromising critical organisations of the US – has fundamentally disrupted the power dynamics of cyberspace. They had no plans to outmatch the strategic cyber offensive might of the US, so the spies tactically blended-in with the environment, exploited “transitive trust” of the computers, and used deception to look like routine processes. Its Defend Forward strategy was premised upon undertaking pre-emptive, extrajudicial cyber operations within the adversary’s own information space – neutralising a potential threat even before it was instantiated. The Defend Forward strategy was based on some broad, sweeping assumptions. Cyber strategists are now back to the drawing board as even the most meticulously derived variables and equations of cyber power look like unfounded abstractions.

Source: Hindustan Times December 27, 2020 12:43 UTC