US may launch pre-emptive cyber strikes: Report

A secret legal review has concluded that US President Barack Obama has the limitless power to start cyber wars under the pretext of pre-emption of potential attacks against the United States.

The New York Times, citing officials involved in the review, said on Monday that in the coming weeks the US administration may approve the country’s first rules for the ways the US military could defend or retaliate against cyber attacks.

“New policies will also govern how the intelligence agencies can carry out searches of faraway computer networks for signs of potential attacks on the US and, if the president approves, attack adversaries by injecting them with destructive code — even if there is no declared war,” the paper said.

The paper also quoted one of the officials as saying that those involved in the review had determined that cyberweapons were so powerful, like nuclear weapons, that they should be unleashed only on the direct orders of the commander-in-chief.

The review came after the US Department of Defense approved expansion of its cyber security force in the next few years in order to boost its power to defend the country’s critical computer networks.

The department’s Cyber Command has planned to increase the number of its employees from 900 to about 4,900 troops and civilians, the Washington Post said.

Obama has reportedly ordered the use of cyber attacks only once, early in his presidency, against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, the Times also said.

The President’s senior counter-terror official John Brennan, who has been nominated to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has played a key role in developing the cyberwarfare policies, the paper also said.