After
the U.S. launched a cyber strike on Iran’s weapons systems last
month, military warfare could increasingly look like a loss of connectivity —
rather than a loss of life, according to a cybersecurity expert.
The
attack on Iran’s security systems — used to control its rocket and
missile launches — was a “game changing” event for both the cyber-security
industry and “how we think about geopolitics,” Splunk’s Haiyan Song told CNBC
Tuesday.
“A
military action got diverted to really becoming a cyber action,” said Song.
U.S.
President Donald Trump reportedly approved the cyber attack against
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on June 22, days after Tehran shot
down an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone.
Days
before the cyberattack, Trump had called off a conventional military assault
against Iran, saying that the expected loss of life — estimated to be about 150
people — would have been disproportionate to the downing of the unmanned drone.
The
attack marked the latest chapter in the U.S. and Iran’s ongoing cyber
operations targeting each other. Tensions have been escalating between
Washington and Tehran, after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the 2015
nuclear deal with Iran last year and began a policy of “maximum pressure”
campaign aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions.
Asked
if she anticipated a ramping up of such cyberattacks as a means of warfare,
Song, senior vice president and general manager of security markets at the
multinational software company, was unequivocal.
“The
short answer is absolutely,” Song said at the World Economic Forum in
Dalian, China. “I think this is really a new way for a lot of countries and
nation states to really think about their competitiveness in the military
world.”
Such
forms of cyberattacks are also growing in the business world, Song noted,
highlighting phishing attacks and the infiltration of cloud technology as two
particular areas of disruption.
Song
added that as inter-connectivity increases, “the vengeance, the frequency and
the speed and the coverage” of such attacks will only grow.