Cyber Warfare and Estonia

In the New Times Greg Bruno reports of the use of cyber warfare in Estonia. Estonia has a high-tech computerized government that was attacked in spring of 2007. Bruno reports, "A flood of bogus requests for information from computers around the world conspired to cripple the websites of Estonian banks, media outlets, and ministries for days. Estonia denounced the attacks as an unprovoked act of aggression from a regional foe (though experts still disagree on who perpetrated it--Moscow has denied any knowledge. Experts in cybersecurity went one step further: They called it the future of warfare." 

Has our dependence on technology made this a form of "warfare"? I could never have imagined this age of technology could have come to this, but in reality several countries have been accused of aggressive cyber "attacks" including the United States. Washington has accused China of hacking into US departments of State , Commerce, and DEfense and is believed to be the most active country in cyber warfare. Interestingly Bruno reveals the Office of the Secretary of Defense was hacked and briefly shut down. Who knows what was released or opened when this occurred but if hacking the Office of the Secretary of Defense is possible then hacking Secretary  into the Pentagon doesn't seem far fetched. If our security systems we hacked we could be exposed to all enemies.   

According to the article the United States has been able to successfully breach our enemies technology, jamming networks and disabling communication systems. They have also been able to create false intel for other countries which they perceive as real and credible. 

The use of this type of warfare seems almost cowardly and wrong. Using technology to breakdown another countries capabilities of defending itself could be crippling. Also with cyber warfare the country under attack rarely is able to trace the attacker. With China's continuing growth as a competing hegemon and the most active country in cyber warfare tensions between with the US may soar. For this US military institutions have made large efforts to protect itself from cyber attacks investing upwards of 6 billion dollars. Now cyber attacks are taken more seriously following the events that nearly shut down the Estonian government. Just for one last scare, Bruno says in 2007 alone there were 37,00 attempted breaches on the Department of Homeland Security and over 80,000 attempts on the Pentagon systems.