Today, the US Department of Defense released a highly-anticipated document, entitled, “Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace.”

I think this comment from a Pentagon official goes right to the heart of the issue:

“The department and the nation have vulnerabilities in cyberspace. Our reliance on cyberspace stands in stark contrast to the inadequacy of our cybersecurity.”

High reliance on cyberspace + low confidence in our ability to cope with bad guys = a dangerous combination.

I haven’t read the paper yet, but will comment more when I do.  The topic is both scary and intellectually stimulating to me. Perhaps I should enlist and ask to be assigned to the Cyber Command.

Oh, by the way, is it only coincidence that Iran recently launched their own Cyber Command?  I think not.

Cyberwarzone.com is a “portal for information on cyberspace related issues. Cyberwarzone collects information about ongoing events in the cyberspace world. The goal is to provide information on cyberwarfare, cybercrime and cyberterrorism.”

The site was founded and is maintained by a 21-year old digital forensics student, Reza Rafati.

Two associated sites are

• Worldwidenews.cyberwarzone.com. This projects “grabs” feeds from around the world and puts them on a list or a GEO-TAG enabled map. (GEO-tagging allows people to see where the news was published).
• Network portal for Cyber warfare security experts. This site is a news and collaboration site for information security experts.

Thanks to my colleague Kevin Moulton for pointing out an excellent Yahoo! special report: In cyberspy vs. cyberspy, China has the edge.

According to U. S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data — from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems. And Chinese hackers show no signs of letting up. “The attacks coming out of China are not only continuing, they are accelerating,” says Alan Paller, director of research at information-security training group SANS Institute in Washington, DC.

Private enterprise is also getting hit big time.

The official figures don’t account for intrusions into commercial computer networks, which are part of an expanding cyber-espionage campaign attributed to China, according to current and former U. S. national security officials and computer-security experts. 

In the last two years, dozens of U. S. companies in the technology, oil and gas and financial sectors have disclosed that their computer systems have been infiltrated. 

In January 2010, Internet search giant Google announced it was the target of a sophisticated cyber-attack using malicious code dubbed “Aurora,” which compromised the Gmail accounts of human rights activists and succeeded in accessing Google source code repositories.

The political ramifications of this cyber warfare are huge. The US and China are the world’s two largest economies, both cooperating and competing on the world’s stage.  With China owning more than $1.1 trillion in U. S. government debt, destabilization of U. S. markets due Chinese cyberattacks would, in effect, be an attack on China’s economy itself.

The old Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy comics were hilarious, with each spy destroying the other through nefarious means, and then getting up quickly to compete another day.   On the other hand, the China vs. USA cyberspy game is serious business – we play this one for keeps.