Talk about the “Russian track” in the US presidential race does not stop. Western intelligence agencies claim that Russian hackers intervened in the election process, but do not provide evidence. They could be taken a word if they were gentlemen, but alas. Meanwhile, the Russian cyber army is not the most financed in the international arena. This is evidenced by the study of Zecurion Analytics, which amounted to ranking of the most powerful cyber-military units of 2017.
The United States, ranking the top 10 strongest armies in the world, is the most aggressive nation in the world when it comes to espionage and cyber attacks. The United States focused on online warfare back in 2010, when the United States Cyber Command combined the capabilities of the cyber army of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps under one roof. Billions of dollars have been invested in this project. Two years ago, the Pentagon announced a massive expansion of its cyber capabilities, expanding its staff from 1,800 in 2014 to 6,000 in 2016. Also, the United States is the only country to ever launch a real cyber war. This happened during the Obama presidency, when his administration used cyber attacks to destroy thousands of Iranian centrifuges used to enrich nuclear materials. As the Department of Defense admitted, these actions were an illegal act of war.
A similar path is followed by China, which recently announced that it will unify its capabilities to fulfill the task set by Secretary General Xi Jinping - the transformation of the People’s Liberation Army into a force capable of "fighting and winning in modern wars."
Russia is in the top 5 of the most powerful cyber army in the world. In 2008, during the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, Russian hackers carried out DDOS attacks on Georgian government resources, so successfully that the servers of official Georgian sites had to be moved abroad. And in early 2014, there were reports in the American media that the Cyber Snake virus, which allowed to destroy data and disable Ukrainian networks, was written by Russian experts.
Another strong player in cyber arena is London. In 2015, the British Center for Government Communications, responsible for electronic intelligence, managed to prevent the attack of hackers from the Fancy Bears, who are believed to be associated with Moscow. Hackers planned to create obstacles to the work of the British ministries and television channels.
Top 8 countries with the most powerful cyber troops
Dozens of states have officially specialized subdivisions dealing with cybersecurity issues, and several hundred informally. At the same time, no country has officially admitted that it is it who is behind this or that action in the information war in Europe or the United States, whether it is an attack on the OSCE computer networks or interference in the struggle between Clinton and Trump.
High-tech espionage is widespread among the countries of Europe and Asia and serves not only for state profit, but also for commercial and criminal profit. The average cost of an attack varies by country, but it is high - more than $ 15 million in the United States and $ 6 million in the United Kingdom, according to the World Economic Forum.
In addition to the countries that occupy the first 8 places in the list of Zecurion Analytics, Iran also has strong cyber army. In 2012, Iranian hackers hit Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Saudi Aramco, nearly destroying its corporate IT infrastructure, leaving the company through difficult times.
