The advent of cyber terrorism created a new front for global warfare, one that could allow nations to target sensitive areas without requiring boots on the ground. While the progenitor of this new form of warfare was America, who targeted Iran’s tech systems in an attempt to hamstring them, the biggest culprits in this trend are actually China and Russia with all things having been considered and taken into account.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations Cyber Operations Tracker, Russia has been responsible for 27 cyber attacks so far in 2022. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that China has also been behind 24 attacks of a similar nature, which makes these two nations the worst offenders in this arena by a large margin.
Most people would assume that countries like North Korea and Iran would be behind the majority of state-sponsored cyber attacks, but in spite of the fact that this is the case this notion does not hold up when data is factored in. North Korea was only responsible for 9 attacks this year, and Iran has been behind 8 attacks which suggest that China and Russia are surpassing both of these nations on the cyber attack front.
China has mainly been focusing on targets in India and the US, whereas Russia’s main target was Ukraine because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up keeping their illegal invasion alive. Taiwan has also been a major victim of China’s cyber attacks since this nation-state challenges China’s narrative that the island is a part of their own empire.
The rise in cyberattacks is a major cause for alarm, since they are increasing in severity and are beginning to target major utilities as well which are causing blackouts and denial of service across several sectors. Countries will have to implement more robust cyber security otherwise it will be difficult to keep these attacks at bay in the future which could cause even more issues.
H/T: Atlas VPN