Cyber Warfare Fundamentals
How states use cyber operations as tools of conflict, from espionage and sabotage to influence campaigns and critical infrastructure attacks.
The Fifth Domain
For centuries, wars were fought on land and sea. The 20th century added air and space. The 21st century has added a fifth domain: cyberspace. Cyber warfare encompasses state-sponsored operations conducted through computer networks to spy on adversaries, sabotage their systems, or manipulate their information environment. Unlike conventional warfare, cyber operations can be conducted anonymously, at low cost, and from thousands of miles away.
The landmark event was Stuxnet, discovered in 2010. This sophisticated malware, widely attributed to the United States and Israel, targeted Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility. It caused centrifuges to spin out of control while reporting normal operations to monitoring systems. Stuxnet destroyed roughly 1,000 centrifuges and set Iran's nuclear program back by an estimated two years. It was the first known cyber weapon to cause physical destruction, crossing a threshold that transformed how governments think about digital conflict.