Suspected state-sponsored attacks by Russia towards the USA have triggered an international cyber arms race threatening to paralyse critical systems
The United States and Russia are enemies of old, and that this hostility has continued into the cyber age should surprise nobody. That Russia should be quite so blatant in its attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, with the hacking of Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mails and their consequent publication on the WikiLeaks website, perhaps more so.
But the surprises don’t stop there. The US government has taken the unusual step of formally accusing the Russians of hacking the Democratic Party servers and Moscow of attempting to interfere with the election process. The White House press secretary even went as far as promising there would be a proportional response in retaliation.
The future of conflict increasingly looks like it sits squarely in cyberspace, and the increasingly open hostility between Russia and the United States has exposed the fact that a cyber arms race has begun.
