To be or not to be Russian cyber troops
Knights of code
Once again we remembered the cyber troops in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in connection with the statement of the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksud Shadayev. He said it would be a good idea to organize information operations troops as an option for contract service. A bold and rather controversial statement from such a high-ranking official. Shadayev can be understood - from the beginning of the special operation, the programmers went into voluntary emigration in an organized manner. And this is not at all in favor of the Ministry of Digital Development.
At least 100 thousand programmers left last year, and the outflow has not stopped this year. The lion's share continues to work in Russian companies, only now remotely. To mitigate the situation, the government has issued a deferment for IT specialists from the army for up to 30 years. True, for this you will have to work in the appropriate accredited companies - various freelancers do not qualify for the benefit.
The head of the Ministry of Digital Development intends to further simplify the life of IT specialists by proposing the creation of cyber troops. The new branch of the military is expected to recruit general IT specialists under contract.
On the one hand, the idea is sound and timely. The Americans have their own cyber command, USCYBERCOM, so why don’t we create an appropriate structure?
The rest of the world has also begun to stir - there are prototypes or existing structures in South and North Korea, Great Britain and China. If you dig deep, every self-respecting power has at least a military cybersecurity department.
It would seem that Russia lags behind not only the United States, but also the whole world, since the issue of cyber troops is only now being raised. This is not so - in one form or another, the army has had units engaged in information warfare for ten years. For example, the Special Development Center of the Ministry of Defense. According to available open information, Cyber Defense Centers have been established in each military district, and they have been operating normally since 2020.
The declared goal of the structure is to ensure the protection of the army’s critical infrastructure from computer attacks. In modern conditions, this must obviously be supplemented by the preventive destruction of enemy targets and a full-fledged information war.
But now the question of creating a special type of troops related to cybersecurity has suddenly been raised. One explanation may be the full-scale introduction of artificial intelligence into the combat systems of the Russian Army. At the beginning of October, in the Era technopolis, under the leadership of the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, issues of further robotization of military equipment were discussed. At the same time it was said that the arms program for 2025–2034. A section on artificial intelligence will appear. Time does not wait, and specialists of the relevant profile were needed in the army yesterday.
Search for expediency
Maksud Shadayev is not the first civilian official to point out the need to create cyber troops in Russia. Last year, Vasily Shpak, Denis Manturov’s deputy, spoke about this. He approached the issue on a larger scale - it was proposed to recruit even conscript soldiers into the cyber forces. Like the scientific companies in the Era technopolis mentioned above.
By the way, you haven’t heard anything about the office’s scientific developments. In the second year of the special operation, the multibillion-dollar scientific center should have simply overwhelmed the front with innovative solutions.
But in the open space there is peace and quiet. Some prototypes of technopolis developments are presented at Army 2023, but nothing unique is visible in them. Era’s modest portfolio includes the classic Sarych reconnaissance drone, a system for training to defeat UAVs from small arms weapons and a manual autonomous complex “Tissue Gun” for medical services. Of course, nothing is known about his appearance at the front.
Will something similar happen with the cyber troops that Russian ministries are talking about? The military will have artificial intelligence, but it won’t be there.
First, it’s worth understanding what is meant by the fashionable term cybernetic or information troops.
It seems that a clear definition still does not exist, or is not yet publicized.
Is it possible to consider the operator drone a fighter on the cybernetic front? Or a programmer hacking SBU servers?
If we turn to the monograph “Network-centric warfare - principles, technologies, examples and prospects”, then the vast field of information technology weapons includes remote network attacks, writing computer viruses, creating software and hardware bookmarks, false objects of the information space and much more.
Cyber units must become a system integrator of a huge variety of military structures - computer, space and technical intelligence, from the tactical tier to the strategic level. It would be nice to teach programmers and other cyber specialists how to manage the behavior of social groups and carry out large-scale psychological operations in the enemy’s camp.
In general, the scope of work for cyber fighters is too extensive. The nuance is that the Russian Army has long had separate structures that cope well with everything described above. And not only in the army, but also in the FSB, SVR, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian Guard.
Among lobbyists for cyber forces, there is an opinion that the creation of a single command center for all security forces will allow the latter to focus on performing their main tasks. In particular, the authors of the creation of the American cyber command USCYBERCOM, which for some time was under the leadership of intelligence officers from the NSA, had a similar motivation. But it was smooth on paper.
Currently, these two structures essentially duplicate each other. And not only them. The United States intelligence community has more than enough offices dedicated to information warfare and cyber weapons. For example, the Department of Homeland Security is directly involved in cybersecurity. So does the Defense Intelligence Agency. USCYBERCOM is just a competing structure built on the “divide and conquer” principle.
At the beginning of 2023, the US Cyber Command abandoned external intelligence data - now its own intelligence center is engaged in this. It is once again emphasized that the structure does not have any uniqueness or expediency. This is just another Pentagon tool in the information war. Unlimited budgets allow Americans to do a lot.
It seems that the reasons for creating domestic cyber troops are approximately the same - an alternative structure is needed that works both jointly and separately from the IT structures of law enforcement agencies. Of course, this should improve the quality and competitiveness of work results.
But there are doubts about the format of the new type of troops.
It is probably wrong to give programmers who write codes to hack enemy servers the benefits and privileges of military personnel of the Russian Army. The fighters behind the monitor screen cannot a priori be compared with attack aircraft, tank crews, pilots and reconnaissance officers. Programmers are the last ones to risk their lives and health.
At the same time, the merits of our hackers in the country, the world and on the information fronts of special operations are not diminished in any way. The ideal cyber force is a complex structure, the lion's share of whose tasks are performed by outsourced civilian specialists. There are many structures in the country that are ready to work for hire for the Ministry of Defense and other intelligence services.
Whatever one may say, the most effective management is in such offices, which are already accustomed to the market and have highly professional staff. If you now create cyber troops from scratch, it will take more than one year (if not a decade) before specialists of the required level are trained. It becomes funny when it is proposed to bring conscript soldiers into such structures. What can you learn in a year of service as a “combat programmer”? The question is rhetorical.
It turns out to be a paradox.
On the one hand, Russia needs cyber troops, and the more, the better.
On the other hand, army structures will cease to be army when they are entrusted with purely cybersecurity issues.
In all other cases, we will only get a dummy with a fashionable and resonant name.
Information