Cyberwarfare : New realities and the uses of aggression

Britain's head of military intelligence, Air Marshal Phil Osborn, is to warn that the risk of attack from “very sophisticated” chemical weapons is now more real than ever before. He will also alert the nation that power stations, water supplies and other parts of critical national infrastructure are under threat from new, advanced missiles.

Air Marshal will extol the virtues of seeing the need to be “much more aggressive and to take risks” in order to be able to counter the range of threats. This could mean launching cyberattacks.

Air Marshal Osborn will base his argument on the fact that modern warfare is multilayered, with some forms of attack far harder to attribute. These forms usually combine the spectrum of non-conventional tactics, including cybertechnology, and information operations such as using multiple robotic accounts on social media to spread false messages designed to influence a population.