War has changed. The new soldiers will not be trained in shooting but in ransomware, their gun a computer, their bullets a line of code. This is not some far away fantasy but a near future and in some respects even our current reality. Turning everything we own into weapons against us is a dystopian and chilling concept, and yet this is the reality we live within. Most voice-activated personal AI assistants, for example, store a recording of what you say to them (Murphy, 2015). Webcams can be accessed by malicious parties, Wi-Fi networks accessed, even some light switches require a certain connectivity and thus are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. To keep up with the modern world is to paint a target upon yourself for anybody with malicious intentions. It is a terrifying yet often underexplored reality. In this essay I aim to explore more into this avenue of war, if it could possibly lead to the end of the world, and how we could possibly hope to counter it.
Deepfakes
Referred to by the Guardian’s Ian Sample as “the 21st century’s answer to photoshopping”, deepfakes are videos created to make a figure look or sound as if they have said a certain thing (Sample, 2020). A prime example of this would be Mark Zuckerberg gloating over his control of people’s information - another component of cyberwarfare in and of itself - (Bill Posters, 2019) made to show the dangers of deepfakes. These are certainly one of the newest additions to a cyberwarrior’s arsenal and with some fine tuning could easily be used to make a politician appear to say things he does not mean. Tensions between countries could escalate without either doing anything.
Deepfakes can also be used to convince parties to do something. If a well-known figure were being used as a mouthpiece for a dangerous idea or to ‘donate’ money to a certain business or site, people would be significantly more likely to be on board with it. Indeed, Forbes writer Steve Andriole notes that scammers have used just an audio deepfake to convince a CEO to part with $243,000 (Andriole, 2020). Imagine what a video deepfake could manage in the future. It is not far-fetched to think that governments could be negotiating technology contracts with an Elon Musk deepfake, just to use one hypothetical.
Deepfakes are not just videos or audio mimicking people, however. They can also be entirely fabricated people, such as CSIS employee (as listed on her LinkedIn profile) Katie Jones, who is now thought to be part of a foreign spy operation. (Sample, 2020) There are also shallowfakes; less advanced deepfakes which simply edit already existing footage to discredit someone or something. (Sample, 2020). For example, The Conservative Party edited a clip of Kier Starmer answering questions regarding Labour’s Brexit policy to make him look confused and stammering, whereas in the unedited footage he answered the question in full. (Jim Waterson, 2019)
Deepfakes are arguably the hottest topic in the cyber warfare debate, and have garnered a lot of attention through activists creating deepfakes of Joe Rogan (Dessa, 2019), Tom Cruise (Ume, 2021), or Barack Obama (BBC, 2019) to name a few, with the aim to spread awareness and help the public be on the lookout for deepfakes.
Other Incidents of Cyber Warfare
As the world increases its reliance on technology, so does it increase its vulnerability to technologically based strikes. Quoting Conor McKeon “A well placed cyber-attack could knock out a city’s traffic lights, alter stock prices, or even manipulate the data in medical records” (McKeon, 2019). China is rather notorious for its involvement in cyber warfare, building a headquarters for the African Union and then installing bugging software into the computers there that would send data back to Shanghai (Fidler, 2018). There are also concerns regarding China’s involvement in the installation of 5G, with accusations that Huawei are a backdoor for China to spy upon other countries (Bowler, 2020).
The aforementioned CSIS (Centre for Strategic and International Studies) has a list of incidents of cyber-attacks on government agencies, defence and high-tech companies, or economic crimes with a loss of over 1 million dollars. This list is updated monthly, and in the month of February 2021 alone there were 15 recorded, including the likes of Portuguese hackers stealing data about the Oxford Covid Vaccine and selling it to nation states, Iranian hackers using a server in Amsterdam to attack political opponents in Europe and India as well as hackers attempting to raise the levels of sodium hydroxide in Oldsmar Florida’s water supply one hundredfold, which would have been incredibly dangerous to any drinkers (CSIS, 2021).
So, Could Cyber Warfare Lead to the End of the World?
If by ‘the end of the world’ we refer to the end of human civilisation, then yes, it is entirely possible. As hackers become more and more intelligent and the defence lags behind, cyber-attacks will rise and will be more successful. Deepfakes will cause tensions to skyrocket as the age of fake news media and misinformation evolves, making it impossible to divide truth from lies. Spyware will make privacy a distant memory as cameras are accessed by every nation or political actor under the sun, and any personal date becomes public data. Online banking, virtual assistants, traffic lights, smart motorways, anything with an internet connection or an interface can be turned into a weapon for the opposition, and inevitably cyber warfare could bring about the end of human civilisation as we know it. Poetically, it could be that humanity’s own advancement brings about its end.
But it does not have to be.
When a deadly virus becomes a global threat, there is increased research and education into the subject matter. Doctors are recruited and vaccines are developed. Cyber warfare needs the same. We must educate more prominently about the dangers of cyber warfare to develop robust and progressive counter strategies. Software to detect deepfakes or increased public scrutiny can counter the misinformation that is and will be increasingly made possible as technology advances. Blockchains to counter viruses, cyber security taught in schools, an effort to get this generation in on the fight against technology from spiralling out of control and consuming us. (McKeon, 2019).
Like every threat, this issue demands education and engagement to be beaten. Cyber warfare does not necessarily need to lead to the end off the world, but it very well could if left to grow in scale.
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