Safeguarding cyber territory from the enemy

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Safeguarding cyber territory from the enemy

Published: 28 May. 2023, 15:20 Updated: 29 May. 2023, 13:04

Byun Jae-sun

The author, a former cyber commander in the military, is a guest professor at Sejong University.

Fifteen months have passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the start of the war, Russia spread fake news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had fled Kyiv, the capital city.

Zelenskyy immediately proved it wrong by posting a video of him striding across the street with his aides on Twitter. Through social media, the young leader aroused a sense of resistance among the people and drew voluntary support from the international community. Above all, the Ukrainian president turned the tide by effectively neutralizing Russia’s ill-intended cyberattacks with a single stroke.

In the era of digital transformation, all countries are carrying out hybrid warfare — a new mix of conventional and unconventional warfare — to protect their national interests. They mobilize not only military means but also various types of non-military means to carry out psychological warfare through fake news, public opinion manipulation and hacking on cyberspace.

In March, the United States announced that it will ban government workers from using TikTok on their computers, smartphones and other electronic equipment out of the fear that their personal information, including behavioral patterns, collected by the short-video platform can be delivered to Chinese authorities or such information can be used as a tool for propaganda war in case China invades Taiwan.

North Korea has been attacking South Korea’s physical, informational and cognitive space through its sophisticated cyber tools to realize its long dream of communizing South Korea. For instance, the North stole $700 million from cryptocurrency exchanges through hacking last year.

That money was used to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear missiles. North Korea reportedly hacked a total of 207 PCs in 61 government agencies, public corporations, media organizations and defense contractors through a watering hole attack.

South Korea established the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) in 2009 to protect the civilian sector from the North’s cyberattacks, and in 2010 founded the Cyber Command to cover the military field. In 2013, the government set four strategic goals in the comprehensive countermeasures for national cybersecurity to make the country an advanced cybersecurity power.

But after the National Intelligence Service’s election intervention scandal in 2012, cybersecurity could hardly develop in the South. The past liberal administration even scrapped psychological warfare units in the military.

Such policy mistakes will certainly make the people and country pay the price.

On March 22, President Yoon Suk Yeol visited the Cyber Operations Command for the first time as the head of state. In that visit, the president stressed the role of cyber operations troops in modern warfare and a preemptive and proactive response to North Korean attacks. In a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden on April 26, President Yoon declared a “cybersecurity alliance” evolving through strategic cybersecurity cooperation with the ally.

I would like to make a few additional points to help develop cybersecurity of the country.

First of all, top leaders of each organization in the government and private sectors must raise the level of their awareness about cybersecurity. They must demonstrate leadership in using cyber technology to carry out the mission of their organization, updating their information system and information protection system, designing and strengthening their information protection unit, ensuring members abide by security rules, and increasing budget for information protection.

Second, an efficient system for national cybersecurity governance is needed. To achieve it, the government must fix the laws and systems on the efficient operation of cybersecurity command center, streamlining the cyber psychological warfare units, enacting the basic cybersecurity law, and reflecting cybersecurity in the combined defense law as soon as possible
Third, the government must rapidly establish a healthy habitat for white hat hackers at national levels. Each organization must hire civilian talents for units developing cyberwar capabilities higher than the enemy through diverse cooperation and joint projects with competent white hat hackers or cybersecurity companies.

Fourth, the government must set up a global cooperation system for cybersecurity. To cope with borderless cyberwar efficiently, it must strengthen international coordination with cyber allies to the highest level.

The government must diffuse the national recognition and consensus that cybersecurity threat constitutes as grave a security threat as North Korean nuclear missile threats.

Safeguarding the country’s cyber territory and winning the cyberwar against enemies must be preceded by fixing the laws and systems, addressing the budget requirements, and executing them.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.