While several countries spent massive amounts of money and years of time to create facilities to get ahead in the global nuclear arms race, a new kind of arms race is now happening.
The new arms race is centered on cyberweapons, which are much cheaper to create compared to nukes and are available to anyone with computers and the money to spend on developing them.
The United States successfully launched several computer attacks that has kicked off a digital arms race, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The destabilizing and frantic arms race now has dozens of countries working to collect malicious code, ranging from the simplest phishing e-mails looking to extract passwords to the most complicated and destructive cyberattacks.
At least 29 governments have established units that are focused on offensive hacking activities, with the United States among the countries with the most advanced systems. Around 50 countries have purchased readily available hacking software which could be utilized for surveillance for both a domestic and international scale.
One of the major differences between the nuclear arms race and the digital arms race, according to NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence researcher Matthijs Veenendaal, was what countries involved were feeling.
For the nuclear arms race, there applies an acronym of MAD, meaning mutually assured destruction. This kept the counties in check, as any form of nuclear attack would be met with a retaliation of the same proportion. However, for the digital arms race, there still applies an acronym of MAD, but this time meaning mutually assured doubt, with governments not sure on what kind of attack would be launched and from who the attack would come from.
Governments have been using cyberattacks to extract and pilfer sensitive information, wipe out systems and disable networks of banks. In one extreme case, cyberweapons have even been used in the destruction of nuclear centrifuges. Other possible uses for cyberweapons include knocking out electricity grids, shutting down airline networks, jamming Internet connections, deleting money in bank accounts and confusing radar systems.
More alarming is the fact that the current access to cyberweapons is more widespread compared to access to nuclear weapons during the height of the global nuclear arms race, according to officials and security researchers.
The United States and China have recently reached a cyberespionage truce, with both countries promising to discontinue hacking and cyber espionage activities against the other. However, the digital arms race is still most likely on, and it remains to be seen that the future will hold for cyberweapons.
