Foreword

Protecting critical information assets, enabling safe communications, and conducting effective military operations in cyberspace have become critical national security priorities for many nations. They are priorities driven not only by dramatic advances in cyber attack tools and technology, but also by the dangerous reality that such capabilities are in the hands of governments, criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and individual hackers. Once isolated and relatively ineffective, cyber attacks today are highly effective and well-coordinated operations that often consist of sequenced tit-for-tat attacks and counter-attacks. Such attacks have the theoretical potential to paralize national economies, cripple governmental functions, and endanger the physical well-being of populations. The inevitable result of these developments could well be local or even global cyber confiagrations, with consequences rising to the level of those occurring during traditional physical military confrontations.