CS Monitor: Russian and Ukrainian ground forces are keeping their conventional weapons holstered for now, but it’s an escalating shooting war in cyberspace. Ukrainian government computers were hit with 42 separate cyberattacks during the Crimea referendum on March 16, according to media reports. The following day Russian websites were targeted by an even more muscular counterstrike.
It’s new proof that the world is entering a dangerously unstable and suspicious era, all the more troubling because cyber conflicts can rage with no physical-world aspect apparent – at least until a power grid gets taken out. Yet only the United States has – accurately – ranked cyberattacks as its top national security issue for 2014, ahead of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. In Europe, on the other hand, no nation has assigned cyberthreats Tier 1 priority.
