US lays out pre-emptive cyber attack doctrine
US President Barack Obama has the power to order a pre-emptive cyber strike if the country detects credible evidence of a major digital attack against it from abroad, a secret legal review has concluded amid increased cyber attacks on American firms and critical infrastructure.
US President Barack Obama has the power to order a pre-emptive cyber strike if the country detects credible evidence of a major digital attack against it from abroad, a secret legal review has concluded amid increased cyber attacks on American firms and critical infrastructure.
Citing unnamed officials involved in the review, the New York Times has reported that in the next few weeks, the Obama administration may approve the nation's first rules for how the US military can defend, or retaliate, against a major cyber attack.
"New policies will also govern how the intelligence agencies can carry out searches of faraway computer networks for signs of potential attacks on the US and, if the president approves, attack adversaries by injecting them with destructive code, even if there is no declared war," the paper said.
Cyberweaponry is the newest and perhaps most complex arms race under way. The Pentagon has created a new Cyber Command, and computer network warfare is one of the few parts of the military budget that is expected to grow.
Under current rules, the military can openly carry out counterterrorism missions in nations where the United States operates under the rules of war, like Afghanistan. But the intelligence agencies have the authority to carry out clandestine drone strikes and commando raids in places like Pakistan and Yemen, which are not declared war zones.
Obama is known to have approved the use of cyberweapons only once, early in his presidency, when he ordered an escalating series of cyberattacks against Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, the report said.
The attacks on Iran illustrated that a nation's infrastructure can be destroyed without bombing it or sending in saboteurs, it said.