Russian Cyber Capabilities, Policy and Practice

[MedusaX]

This article was published in the winter of 2014

It identifies the motivation, philosophy, and implementation strategies related to Russia's cyber operations......

In 2014, the subject of this article was most likely seen as unimportant or irrelevant by the average US reader....

Today, it's subject is of utmost importance to us all.

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Russia—its government and a motley crew of sometimes government- sponsored but always government-connected cyber-criminals and youth group members—has integrated cyber operations into its military doctrine, has used cyber tools against enemies foreign and domestic, and is conducting strategic espionage against the United States.

Moreover, it spares no diplomatic effort in trying to forge a path for its nefarious activities while resisting efforts to do anything constructive in the international arena.

To explain all this, it is necessary to set out two points about Russia:
1) Russia is characterized by a unique nexus of government, business, and crime; and
2) Russia takes a much broader approach to information operations than do most Western countries.

Corruption is the dominant characteristic of the current Russian polity. And with systemic corruption come opportunities for collusion on just about everything.
The rule of law flies out the window, replaced by personal relationships and payoffs. Laws are enforced arbitrarily—what matters is oneʼs circle of friends.

The second point is that Russia holds a broad concept of information warfare, which includes intelligence,
counterintelligence,
deceit,
disinformation,
electronic warfare,
debilitation of communications,
degradation of navigation support,
psychological pressure,
degradation of information systems and propaganda.

Computers are just among the many tools of information warfare,
which is carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in war and in peace.
Seen this way, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, cyber espionage, and Russia Today television are all related tools of information warfare.

Moreover, Russiaʼs way of kinetic war includes information warfare and it follows that information warfare against Russia will be considered warfare.

The current Russian military doctrine calls for “prior implementation of measures of informational warfare in order to achieve political objectives without the utilization of military forces.”
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https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2013/12/31/russian-cyber-capabilities/#