Ten Technologies Needed on the Digital Battlefield

“How numerous hackers has the Pope”?

As warfare more and more focuses to the electronic battlefield, ten rising technologies have been recognized that could help Western stability forces repel so-referred to as gray zone attacks.

The escalating risk posed by gray zone or hybrid conflict – where by attacks are carried out by exploiting IT vulnerabilities and other non-classic struggle routes, fairly than open warfare – implies defence and stability agencies should be rethinking their tactic and searching to quickly deploy rising technologies, in accordance to a new report.

The Assurance in Chaos report from defence and stability business firm QinetiQ, charts the shift from classic open warfare to gray zone or sub-threshold practices employed by equally point out and non-point out adversaries and highlights the central role that technology plays in equally enabling gray zone attacks and defending against them.

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Higher-profile attacks targeting occasions these kinds of as elections have turn into commonplace in modern decades, and before this month Australian defence minister Linda Reynolds revealed the extent to which the line amongst war and peace has turn into “blurred”, stating that he country is underneath frequent cyber attack.

“We’re now facing an surroundings where by cyber-enabled functions have the prospective to drive disinformation, and also specifically assistance interference in our financial state, interference in our political process, and also in what we see as crucial infrastructure,” she said.

“This variety of activity truly does blur what we previously recognized to be peace and war, which is what we connect with that gray zone in amongst.”

The Keyboard is Mightier Than the Bullet

Mike Sewart is team CTO at QinetiQ, and told Computer Organization Evaluation: “Defence has traditionally been characterized by armed service might how numerous tanks have you bought? How numerous submarines? How numerous ships? That bodily presence is the deterrent for the enemy.

“Now, in the hybrid battle predicament, you really don’t have to have individuals bodily money assets to have a considerable impact on the enemy. A pair of keystrokes can be additional devastating than a bullet.

“The changing dynamic in technology which is specified rise to additional technology becoming obtainable by a wider vary of men and women and in the hands of the undesirable guys, then which is not a great situation to be in. I feel the West has to now realize that the risk envelope has modified pretty substantially.

“Classic warfare strategies are still valid since we’re in this hybrid earth. But we have to also think about that a weaponized computer software is a is a important enabler for the enemy proper now, and have to approach accordingly.”

10 Systems to Stop Gray Zone Attacks

The report breaks gray zone attacks down into 5 types:

1. Deniable attacks: A cyber attack on utilities or drones attacking an airport
2. Details attacks: Overseas election interference or fake text information/electronic mail scames
3. Person of proxy power: Terrorist attacks on cities or infrastructure
4. Financial coercion: An adversary acquiring and disabling a piece of infrastructure these kinds of as an oil refinery
5. Territorial encroachment: Seizing a fishing lane or sovereign territory

It also describes 10 technology spots that QinetiQ sees as becoming essential to encouraging the West counter gray zone practices.

Mike suggests: “Grey zone practices are today’s reality and the West and its allies have no alternative but to adapt. Rising and current technologies hold the important to reaching competitive edge when countering gray zone attacks. Merely carrying out what we have normally completed is neither recommended nor possible. As an alternative, we must embrace a additional scientific and technology-concentrated tactic to defence and stability.”

The technologies highlighted in the report are:

1. AI, analytics and advanced computing – By drawing and fusing details from several resources, AI can deduce enemy destinations and even model predicted behaviours to lessen the covert character of enemy attacks.
2. Cyber and electromagnetic functions – The cyber domain is a critical front in gray zone level of competition, with a lot of professionals debating the topic. A lot less mentioned is the vulnerability of the electromagnetic spectrum.
3. Novel weapons, units and outcomes – there are a huge vary of alternatives to kinetic weapons, but in the context of the gray zone, directed energy is the most related. It can achieve regular mission goals covertly and deniably. For illustration, a ship could expend thousands and thousands of dollars’ value of munitions defending against a swarm of inexpensive, explosive-laden quadcopters, or a modest fleet of rigid inflatable boats. Alternatively, a laser weapon could neutralise them at what is claimed to be the expense of a dollar for every shot.
4. Power resources, energy storage and distribution – Some situations involve hugely specialised energy storage and ability shipping and delivery units, as opposed to relying on grid energy.
5. Robotics and autonomous units (RAS) – in the gray zone, RAS could harness the collective ability of several units to present additional granular situational recognition, as effectively as encouraging to increase a user’s sphere of impact.
6. Safe communications and navigation – Communication lies at the coronary heart of all gray zone operations. Transferring data all around is essential to developing an intelligence on which to base strategic final decision-earning.
7. Sensing, processing and details fusion – The important to gray zone edge is recognition. Advancements in sensor technology are generating new options to obtain that details from the bodily earth
8. Superior resources and producing – The gray zone’s quickly shifting character implies new capabilities must normally be fast-tracked into service in reaction to rising and evolving threats. The potential to manufacture promptly and at scale is hence essential to securing the edge more than adversaries.
9. Human security and functionality – New capabilities simply cannot be introduced safely and securely or proficiently devoid of 1st being familiar with how people may perhaps interact with them. Unpredicted human responses can undermine the benefits of technology. All new technologies and methods should hence be created with the human in mind and analyzed in live exercise routines to expose hidden dangers. Comprehension how men and women react to matters like disinformation strategies gives clues as to how very best to secure against them
10. Platform and process design and assessment – Below the threshold of war, the primary role of big platforms like warships and tanks is to act as a deterrent against armed service aggression. By moving absent from long everyday living units which are normally tougher to adapt, to a modular tactic that allows main capabilities to be augmented, while preserving necessary features, will supply substantially bigger worth for money.

Mike concludes:“With defence shelling out all around the earth coming underneath rising general public and governing administration scrutiny, we are at cross-roads in how we evolve our defence and stability infrastructure to be in good shape for intent. The classic supremacy of allied forces in regular armed service conflicts at present does not extend to gray zone practices, so a new tactic desires to be readily viewed as and deployed”.

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