Hardly a week goes by these days without some startling new development in the fields of cyberwarfare and cyberespionage. This month senior US officials let it be known that President Barack Obama had personally authorised the deployment of the Stuxnet computer worm against Iran’s nuclear programme. At about the same time, stories emerged about Flame, an even more sophisticated virus that in May 2012 penetrated the computers of high-ranking Iranian officials. This week the head of Britain’s security service MI5 sounded the alarm about growing cyberespionage by Russia and China against western governments and companies. In his view the amount of activity being undertaken by these states – and by other actors – is “astonishing”.
如今在網路戰爭和網路間諜領域，幾乎每週都有驚人的新動向。上月，美國一些高官透露，美國總統巴拉克•歐巴馬(Barack Obama)曾親自批准部署蠕蟲病毒震網(Stuxnet)，以對付伊朗核計劃。幾乎與此同時，傳出訊息稱，一種更加先進的病毒——Flame，在今年5月侵入了伊朗一些高官的電腦。最近，英國安全部門軍情五處(MI5)主管發出警告，俄羅斯和中國針對西方政府和企業的網路間諜活動不斷增加。這名主管認爲，這兩個國家和其他行爲主體正在進行的此類活動數量之多，「令人震驚」。