Here's what a cyber warfare arsenal might look like

The strategy does not go into detail about which digital weapons the cyber mission force will deploy to fight its campaigns. That information can instead be gleaned from the malicious software—“malware”—already rampant on the Internet as well as military technologies designed to disrupt digital communications. The Stuxnet worm that sabotaged Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in November 2007 is an early example of cyber war weaponry. No one has officially claimed ownership of Stuxnet although much speculation points to the U.S. and Israel as its authors. A related piece of strategic malware known as Flame is subtler, stealthily gathering information and transmitting it via Bluetooth while avoiding detection.

The components of cyber warfare are the very same components as warfare using guns and explosives, only much faster, Saydjari says. An attacker would seek to damage a critical infrastructure such as power, telecommunications or banking by damaging the computer systems that control those infrastructures. “The instrument of creating that damage is generally some form of malicious software that is inserted into such systems by a variety of means including hacking into the system by taking advantage of some known but as yet unpatched or as yet undiscovered vulnerability,” he adds.