Cyber Attacks and Sabotage Are Acts of War, Pentagon Rules

The Department of Defense concluded on Tuesday that a cyber attack or sabotage coming from another nation is an act of war, and is finalizing a strategy based on their findings, said media reports.

The plan has not been made formally public but the Wall Street Journal, citing military officials close to the matter, said that parts will be released next month. In the report, the Pentagon is seeking to equate a hack to an actual military attack, sending a warning to potential foes.

If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks, one military official told the Journal.

An increasing number of critical sites, like nuclear power plants, power grids, and mass transportation lines have gone online, making them more likely to be hacked.

Several days ago, Lockheed Martin, who is a major defense contractor for the U.S., was apparently hacked. The company has stressed that no significant information was taken.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Marine Corps Colonel David Lapan, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, told reporters that if we are attacked we reserve the right to do any number of things in response just like we do with normal military attacks, according to Bloomberg News.

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Cyber would be viewed the same way. The military option is always an option. There are other things we can do, he added, noting that the Pentagons development of a new strategy isnt set in stone, according to the news agency.

The Pentagon is wrestling over the eye-for-an-eye idea. Most cyber attacks do not cause any deaths or injuries but if it causes death, destruction, or disruption similar to that caused in a normal military attack, then the U.S. could use traditional military force to deal with the assailants, according to the Journal.

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