I’ve read somewhere that a world war will not happen anymore because there are constant cyber wars. Are there certain countries that work together and attack other countries?
In: Technology
>I’ve read somewhere that a world war will not happen anymore because there are constant cyber wars.
The main factor preventing world wars is the globalization of economies. Anyone starting a war will not only ruin trade relations with their target, but likely provoke their business partners into imposing economic sanctions
>What goes on during cyber wars across countries?
Mostly espionage. Countries try to gain intel on rivals and or carry out sabotage. For instance, the US made a virus that spread to Windows PCs indiscriminately, but didn’t do anything nefarious except check if the PC had control over a specific type of motor known to be used by Iran for purifying nuclear material. Then the virus would randomly speed up those motors past what is safe, causing explosions on any such motors being used to refine nuclear weapons. This set back Iran’s nuclear program considerably.
>Are there certain countries that work together and attack other countries?
While this is possible, I don’t consider it likely. Unless one country is a satellite country of the other (basically subservient to the bigger country). Working together on a cyber attack is likely to tip one country’s hand to the other’s spy network, which is something they’d otherwise place a high priority on keeping secret.
Well a cyber war wouldn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t need to use conventional weapons/war as well. World war is unlikely to happen due to nuclear weapons. But I can’t imagine something that could be called a cyber war, more cyber attacks/defence. And yes there are countries that work together, think the 5 eyes of uk, us, aus, nz, and can, it’s an intelligence sharing community but I doubt they wouldn’t work together on cyber attacks etc. Cyber attacks could replace the need for certain wars though, take for example the Iranian nuclear missile cyber attack by the US. If they were close to making nuclear weapons a conventional war could’ve been necessary, instead they managed to attack the centrifuges in the uranium enrichment centres using a virus, which destroyed a lot of their capability.
check out [the sunburst hack](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/evasive-attacker-leverages-solarwinds-supply-chain-compromises-with-sunburst-backdoor.html), which is still in progress
one concern is the spread of misinformation and propoganda in order to sow social dissent within a population. With enough understanding of sociology and behaviour theory, you can influence a population to turn on its leadership.
Case-in-point, one kid on tik tok got life360 banned by posting a video telling other high schoolers to tank its reviews on the app store. Also note catalysts that lead to great American conflicts such as the Boston massacre. One event, or spread of information can launch an entire population into a concerted effort against a common enemy. If enemies abroad wanted to strike against a state, they could simply leverage these tactics against said state.
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