Intelligence and cyber espionage have become two sides of the same coin in today’s multifaceted and interconnected global environment. The challenge that the two concept renders to Africa’s geopolitical security predicament is daunting. Espionage and counter espionage has often existed and until the the 20th Century, the contemporary means of intelligence gathering has been perpetuated in the cyber space – where network computers are infiltrated in ways that involved careful and critical collection of data and information from an adversary group. Thus, intelligence and its attendants; surveillance and reconnaissance has become a very important means of cyber warfare in contemporary politics.
The United States military doctrine views intelligence as information that a commander finds vital in making decision plus the sources, methods and processes used to produce such information. Its of course critical to point out that not all information are intelligence. But what exactly do we mean by intelligence? Is intelligence the same as spying? Is the term used interchangeably of recent and how are the conceptualisation of the two terms been translated into aspects of cyber? Its therefore crucial to delineate the two playing fields. While intelligence relates to a term that became dominant in the 20th Century and with the proliferation of information and communication technologies, spying dates back as far as the dawn of history. Around 300 B.C the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu in his classic “The Art of War’’ described a spy as one that collects secrets, spreads disinformation or bad counsel in the enemy camp, or even assassinate enemy officials.
Today, cyber space operations are quite obvious twins with traditional human espionage. For instance, while the human spy would certainly collect critical information of the adversary group and transmit to their recipient, likewise, an implant or an intrusion malware can sit in a computer system for years collecting secrets great and small and relaying it to another interested party without the knowledge of the user or the actor spied upon. Electronic surveillance today intercepts communication between two or more parties giving insights to what is being said, planned and anticipated by the adversary.
Without delving into the meticulous articulation of intelligence and cyber security (which i hope to revert and do some day), i would like to show our readers the manifestations of cyber espionage perpetuated by nation states and non state actors. I would then draw incidents of cyber espionage within the context of Great Lakes Region and discuss how this poses a challenge to the region’s security, relationships as well as traditional diplomacy.
The alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections hacking computer networks, databases and influencing public opinion in favour of the current incumbent is instructive of the case of nation state cyber espionage. Even though Russia denied the claims and since then, the report vindicated some US citizens in any sort of intentional meddling or interference, the details shows how these arrangements were carefully crafted and executed to aid the election of the US President Donald Trump. The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) broadened its recruitment and appeal focusing in part on young, tech savvy persons living outside the far corners of the battlefields in Iraq and Syria to execute their cyber hacking and spying against the US forces. In October 2015, the United States arrested Kosovar Ardit Ferizi while he was living in Malaysia and charged him with providing material support to terrorism by hacking a US government database and stealing personal information of more than 1,350 thousand military and civilian government personnel information. Ferizi passed the information to an ISIS operative (William C. Banks, 2017).
As if that was not enough, ISIS Cyber caliphate hacking unit seized control of the US central command twitter and youtube feeds in 2015 using them to post propaganda videos and personal information of top military officials. In the same year, hackers seized more than 54,000 thousand twitter accounts for the same objectives. There are several cases, from Snowden, Federal cases, trials and sentences involving instances of nation-state and or non-state to state cyber espionage incidences.
What about Africa, what has been some of the cases that exemplifies instances of cyber espionage? African countries first of all continue to suffer large scale cyber attacks perpetuated by hackers from different sources, sometimes attributing these sources is hard, and yet indeed, colossal sums of money are lost especially on cases of intrusion in which hackers are doing it for financial gain. Earlier in 2018, the French NewsPaper, Lemonde reported that confidential data on the IT network of Chinese built African Union Headquarters in Ethiopia was being shipponed to Shangai every night between 2012 – 2017. This incident could be just a tip of the iceberg on what really happens as far as cyber espionage is concerned
For State and political reasons, most alleged cases of spying in the past concentrated on the traditional human espionage. In 2015, Tanzania and Malawi locked horns after the latter arrested 8 Tanzanian nationals for going to the Kayelekera Uranium mine in Malawi without government consent. In 2015 also, a Rwandan national employed as a Manager in one of the telecommunications company in Bujumbura – the Econet was expelled after the country’s security services alleged that the manager was involved in spying on behalf of Rwandan intelligence services.
The case of tension between Rwanda and Burundi is similar to situation in Uganda in which earlier this year there were diplomatic rifts between Uganda and Rwanda which culminated into border closure and the two countries engaging in media diplomacy blaming and accusing each other of political sabotage and harbouring subversive activities. The Uganda – Rwanda case involved allegation that the South African based Telecommunication giant officials – MTN was aiding spies and facilitating those agents using the company to spy on Uganda and undermine the country’s security. In this particular case, government officials in Uganda were having their telecom conversation tapped and diverted to Rwanda switchboard. Information regarding financial details or these officials were also alleged to have been transmitted to Rwandan intelligence services. While a sort of ‘peace accord’ was reached by the leaders of the two countries in Luanda, Angola, the situation remains precarious.
Cyber espionage is perpetuated by the proliferation of new technologies as it increases the flow of information and networking over internet and yet lowering knowledge about vulnerabilities targeted on some one or a target. These incidents illustrated has caused a lot of challenge to traditional diplomacy. African Foreign Ministers and even many others of such status; have now got to adapt to the changing diplomatic practices some of which have been escalated in the cyber space. Understanding how to manage communication and avoid media misrepresentation continue to pose a challenge. The use of social media in promoting and mitigating diplomatic rifts are now common. Foreign Ministries need to build capacity in these fields and respond to these evolving technological connected and fragile geopolitical arrangement.
Milner (2017) asks a simple but an illuminating question “How Much Cyber Espionage is There”? While we wouldn’t want to engage in this debate at this point in time, its possible to contend that false intelligence gathering even as far as those perpetuated in the cyber space has the tendency to strain state relationship leading to diplomatic rifts, sometimes declaration of persona non grata and closure of boarders. While many nation-states have not gone to war, having bad intelligence that is either misconceived or spoofed by adversary can lead to war as the 2003 Iraqi war illustrates. African think-tanks, Civil Society actors, Private sectors should deepen these conversations moving forward and engage state authorities as well. These would lead to improved peace and security in the region and minimise unnecessary diplomatic tensions that undermines growth of the economies and development.
Moses Owiny
Is
Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Multilateral Affairs
Thank you CEO for this rich treatment on espionage, and more so, cyber espionage.
Actually, International law in nuclear and technology era requires constant reinterpretation and/or reassessment to address new problems, issues and developments in international system.
One the issues and developments inexplicit in the UN Charter is espionage. Thus, states have continuously exploited that lacuna to assault on the sovereignty of others which contravenes the real tenets of the Charter. Most important thing to note is that, in the absence of war, espionage is never explicitly addressed in international law.
Thanks