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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 08 2019, @08:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-swatting-to-the-next-level dept.

This weekend, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an airstrike at Hamas's Cyber HQ in an apparently first of its kind real-time physical response by a nation state targeting the source of a cyber attack (as far as we know).

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has launched a physical attack on Hamas in response to an alleged cyber attack. A strike launched by Israeli forces targeted a building in the Gaza Strip that was hosting Hamas cyber army.

The IDF adopted a hybrid approach, it first stopped the cyber attack carried out by Hamas, then once it [had] localized the source of the offensive launched an airstrike.

This is simultaneously an evolution in hybrid-warfare and a return to levels of physical violence in the conflict between Hamas and Israel that hasn't been seen for five years.

The United States has reserved the right to retaliate similarly against cyber attacks since 2011, but has not done so.

The US had considered kinetic responses to a cyber attack:

State-backed hacking and physical warfare have been on a slow but steady path toward convergence for about two decades, and both information security and warfare researchers say that it was only a matter of time before a nation launched a kinetic attack against enemy hackers. "When I joined the very first Cyber Command in April 1999, we were talking about that as a serious thing in case it was needed," says Jason Healey, a former staffer in the George W. Bush White House and current cyberconflict researcher at Columbia University. "I wouldn't say we necessarily had plans for it, but we were thinking it through."

That's an expensive wrench


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:47PM (5 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:47PM (#840785) Journal

    Could the US respond to cyber attack using smaller scale physical response (eg bombs, snipers, mass counterfeit cash, etc) instead of a large scale response (Big Bombs)?

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @03:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @03:49PM (#840819)

    Russia. If you're listening...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:23PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:23PM (#840843)

    > ...instead of a large scale response (Big Bombs)?

    Nah, all we know about is nuking things from orbit. Nothing subtle about our approach.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:34PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:34PM (#840848) Journal

      Despite the loud bluster, I think, maybe, we only are able to nuke things from Twitter these days.

      I hope we don't have to find out.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:41PM (1 child)

    by legont (4179) on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:41PM (#840860)

    Short of all out nuke strike, the US currently has no capacity to bomb neither Russia nor China. Their rockets are faster and fly farther. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVSldjnJ1-I [youtube.com]

    Sanctions are the only tool available.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:47PM (#840904)

      Short of all out nuke strike, the US currently has no capacity to bomb neither Russia nor China

      X-37 (or whatever it's covering for) + kinetic weapon payload....oh look, a fortuitous meteorite strike....