Hackers, Crackers, Spies and Thieves: Information Warfare in American National Security.

January 14, 2002.

Conference Summary

Information-technology warfare – and its prominent new role in American security following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – was examined by Bruce Berkowitz, one of the nation’s leading experts on the subject, at a Jan. 14 luncheon hosted by the AEI-Brookings Joint Center and Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School.

The Sept. 11 attacks are characteristic of a new type of warfare, one that relies critically on information technology and has radically altered traditional military threats and strategies, said Mr. Berkowitz, a senior staff member at the Rand Corporation and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Typically, we think of information warfare as involving computer "hackers" who use their expertise criminally to cause visible damage that attracts public attention or makes a statement. But as Berkowitz pointed out, the typical combatant in information warfare is not a hacker but a "cracker." Crackers operate in stealth to footprint and penetrate their enemy’s information systems. The principal danger is not that they will compromise a critical computer system in one fell swoop, but that they will combine information warfare with other tactics of war, potentially vastly enhancing the effectiveness of military operations.

The lack of U.S. capability on this front was demonstrated by the inability of U.S. intelligence to find out about the terrorists’ plot in advance. Berkowitz supplies four primary reasons why this happened:

• The government lacked adequate human intelligence by spies or other covert agents.
• The government lacked adequate signal intelligence, or the ability to spot communications through such media as the Internet or cellular devices that are easy to encrypt and hard to interpret.
• The government lacked capability to sort through the volume of data and clues it did accumulate.
• Finally, the multiple agencies responsible for national security, such as the CIA, FBI, and INS, are unable to communicate effectively with each other.

The bin Laden-led network that sponsored the attacks was a new military concept in four respects, Berkowitz said: it was composed of autonomous cells with little central control; it used unconventional weapons; it used alliances with nation states; and it used a network of global communications systems.

The attacks marked the first time that a military commander used a terrorist network to execute a successful large-scale strike against a superpower. The size, complexity, and diffusion of Al Quaeda is remarkable; Osama bin Laden harnessed information technology to overcome what has always been a limiting factor in war: the need to communicate, collect data, and process information.

Berkowitz noted that while the U.S. remains ill-prepared to confront information warfare, its freedom, democracy, and capitalism could give it an advantage in developing that capability. He suggested three initiatives the government should undertake:

• Implement policies that allow U.S. companies to lead, if not dominate, information industries. When U.S. companies dominate these industries, it will be easier for the government to organize measures against hostile IW attacks and will allow the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies to gain access to relevant computer systems.
• Improve cooperation between government and the private information technology industry. Strengthening informal ties between government and industry is one way to facilitate a frank exchange of views about information technology and its role in defense.
• Finally, the government needs to fix the way it keeps secrets. Current restrictions in some agencies are needlessly draconian and in the name of preventing security to be compromised, they unduly restrict the uses of technology that could help prevent terrorist attacks.