Less than just three months after the US Naval Acadamies of Science suggested that the United States set official policy on cyberwarfare, both the US and South Korea have been hit by cyber attacks believed to have originated from North Korea. The academies suggested that the US government lead the world in setting international norms governing the deployment of cyberwarfare as an offensive instrument, preferring to eliminate and anticipate cyber threats before they strike.

Further analysis revealed the attacks to be unsophisticated, reinforcing the belief that the origin was North Korea. However, the relative lack of advanced techniques will only last so long and it is only a matter of time before other nations catch up technologically. This attack has begun a serious discussion on the merits of an offensive approach to cyberwarfare and network security. The basis of this discussion is a report that was prepared by James Lewis for the Center for International and Strategic Studies. There is very little discussion in the report specific to the Korean attack as it has been described purely as a noisy demonstration.

In terms of the actual attacks, the belief is they fall into two broad categories, sabotage and espionage. An example of sabotage would be the Korean attack and others like the incidents in Estonia and Georgia. They provoke international outrage but rarely escalate to international warfare.

Espionage on the other hand, includes acts that could inflict long term damage to physical and virtual properties. Fortunately, no evidence currently exists that anything of this nature has happened but it is well known that few nations, like China, Russia and Israel have the expertise to do it.