CYBER IN THE LIGHT OF KABUL – UNCERTAINTY, SPEED, ASSUMPTIONS

 

There is a similarity between the cyber and intelligence community (IC) – we are both dealing with a denied environment where we have to assess the adversary based on limited verifiable information. The recent events in Afghanistan with the Afghani government and its military imploding and the events that followed were unanticipated and against the ruling assumptions. The assumptions were off, and the events that unfolded were unprecedented and fast. The Afghan security forces evaporated in ten days facing a far smaller enemy leading to a humanitarian crisis. There is no blame in any direction; it is evident that this was not the expected trajectory of events. But still, in my view, there is a lesson to be learned from the events in Kabul that applies to cyber.

The high degree of uncertainty, the speed in both cases, and our reliance on assumptions, not always vetted beyond our inner circles, makes the analogy work. According to the media, in Afghanistan, there was no clear strategy to reach a decisive outcome. You could say the same about cyber. What is a decisive cyber outcome at a strategic level? Are we just staring at tactical noise, from ransomware to unsystematic intrusions, when we should try to figure out the big picture instead?

Cyber is loaded with assumptions that we, over time, accepted. The assumptions become our path-dependent trajectory, and in the absence of the grand nation-state on nation-state cyber conflict, the assumptions are intact. The only reason why cyber’s failed assumption has not yet surfaced is the absence of full cyber engagement in a conflict. There is a creeping assumption that senior leaders will lead future cyber engagements; meanwhile, the data shows that the increased velocity in the engagements could nullify the time window for leaders to lead. Why do we want cyber leaders to lead? It is just how we do business. That is why we traditionally have senior leaders. John Boyd’s OODA-loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) has had a renaissance in cyber the last three years. The increased velocity with support of more capable hardware, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and massive data utilization makes it questionable if there is time for senior leaders to lead traditionally. The risk is that senior leaders are stuck in the first O in the OODA loop, just observing, or in the latter case, orient in the second O in OODA. It might be the case that there is no time to lead because events are unfolding faster than our leaders can decide and act. The way technology is developing; I have a hard time believing that there will be any significant senior leader input at critical junctures because the time window is so narrow.

Leaders will always lead by expressing intent, and that might be the only thing left. Instead of precise orders, do we train leaders and subordinates to be led by intent as a form of decentralized mission command?

Another dominant cyber assumption is critical infrastructure as the likely attack vector. In the last five years, the default assumption in cyber is that critical infrastructure is a tremendous national cyber risk. That might be correct, but there are numerous others. In 1983, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) defined critical infrastructure as “highways, public transit systems, wastewater treatment works, water resources, air traffic control, airports, and municipal water supply.” By the patriot Act of 2001, the scope had grown to include; “systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.” By 2013, in the Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21), the scope widens even further and almost encompasses all society. Today concession stands at ballparks are critical infrastructure, together with thousands of other non-critical functions, shows a mission drift that undermines a national cyber defense. There is no guidance on what to prioritize and what not to prioritize that we might have to live without at a critical juncture. The question is if critical infrastructure matters for our potential adversaries as an attack vector or is it critical infrastructure because it matters to us? A potential adversary wants to attack infrastructure around American military facilities and slow down the transportation apparatus from bases to the port of embarkation (POE) to delay the arrival of U.S. troops in theater. The adversary might do a different assessment, saying that tampering with the American homeland only strengthens the American will to fight and popular support for a conflict. The potential adversary might utilize our critical infrastructure as a capture-the-flag training ground to training their offensive teams, but the activity has no strategic intent.

As broad as the definition is today, it is likely that the focus on critical infrastructure reflects what concerns us instead of what the adversary considers essential for them to reach strategic success. So today, when we witnessed the unprecedented events in Afghanistan, where it appears that our assumptions were off, it is good to keep in mind that cyber is heavy with untested assumptions. In cyber, what we know about the adversary and their intent is limited. We make assumptions based on the potential adversaries’ behavior and doctrine, but it is still an assumption.
So the failures to correctly assess Afghanistan should be a wake-up call for the cyber community, which also relies on unvalidated information.