Cyber Combat: Act of War Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force

Cover Photo credit: Geeky Gadgets

By Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes | Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

WSJ’s Siobhan Gorman has the exclusive story of the Pentagon classifying cyber attacks by foreign nations as acts of war. Photo: THOMAS KIENZLE/AFP/Getty Images

The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official.

The War on Cyber Attacks:

Attacks of varying severity have rattled nations in recent years.

June 2009: First version of Stuxnet virus starts spreading, eventually sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program. Some experts suspect it was an Israeli attempt, possibly with American help.

November 2008: A computer virus believed to have originated in Russia succeeds in penetrating at least one classified U.S. military computer network.

August 2008: Online attack on websites of Georgian government agencies and financial institutions at start of brief war between Russia and Georgia.

May 2007: Attack on Estonian banking and government websites occurs that is similar to the later one in Georgia but has greater impact because Estonia is more dependent on online banking.

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