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Introduction
We live in a society that heavily relies on information for its political, economic and social welfare. The term 'information' in the context of this article includes any data that allows governments and nation states to engage in the general functionalities of identification, categorization, decision making and action execution. Thus, a society's daily operations depend on this information, and its misuse by an adversary can have detrimental consequences. Information warfare (IW) involves the exploitation, corruption, denial, destruction, unauthorized collection or protection of information to achieve advantage over an adversary (Libicki, 1995; Haeni, 1997; Iwar.org.uk, 2003; Taylor et al , 2006). The goal of IW is to create loss of integrity, availability and confidentiality: integrity is lost if unauthorized changes are made to sensitive data; (un)availability is an issue if information is rendered inoperable to its end-users; and confidentiality is lost when information is not protected from unauthorized disclosure (DCSINT, 2006).
IW manifests itself in five ways (Libicki, 1995; Taylor et al , 2006). First, it is psychological in nature, where information is used to affect the opponent's state of mind. Command-and-control warfare involves misleading the opponent about military capabilities and/or manipulating the adversary's command structure. IW also occurs in the form of physical destruction, where information systems are physically attacked. Security measures are the fourth form of IW, and include protection measures for information systems to prevent or deflect adversarial threats. These four manifestations illustrate that IW is not a new strategy and is technology independent.
The rapid proliferation of information and communications technologies (ICTs) improves the means to collect, store, analyze and transmit data, providing access to information unprecedented in quantity and quality. Information systems can now be exploited, corrupted, denied or destroyed through technological means, resulting in digital information warfare (DIW), which is the fifth manifestation of IW and the focus of this article (Libicki, 1995; Alberts, 1996; Taylor et al , 2006).
DIW is particularly relevant when critical infrastructures are concerned. Critical infrastructures include those systems and assets, which are vital to a nation's everyday functioning and security. Some of these include transportation, banking and finance, telecommunications and power plants. Over the years, critical infrastructures have become increasingly complex and interconnected, relying on ICTs for better efficiency and reliability (Rege-Patwardhan,...