Australia's head of cyber warfare exits

The head of the Australian Defence Force’s information warfare division has called it quits after more than three years in the role.

Major General Marcus Thompson, who has led the division since it was established as a 100-person unit in July 2017, worked his last day on Wednesday.

The unit – which is expected to grow to 900 personnel with a decade – is tasked with providing both defensive and offensive cyber capabilities to the ADF across all operations.

“Today marks my final day as head [of] information warfare, and in all likelihood, my final day in uniform after almost 34 years,” Thompson wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday.

“I leave feeling proud of my contribution, extremely satisfied with the achievements of my team, and optimistic for the future of [the] information warfare division.

After three years in the role.

Does cyber warfare spell the end of armies?

 Artificial Intelligence, unmanned drones, cyber attacks and GPS tracking now play a key role in global conflict, but does that mean the end of traditional warfare?

It's a question The Agenda's Stephen Cole put to Lawrence Freedman, the emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London and author of The Future of War: A History.

He said: "Any conflict that now goes on has a cyber element. What's difficult to understand is how it could ever be the sole driver of a conflict, excluding what you call 'kinetic weapons.'"

Freedman added that conflict simply involving cyber attacks couldn't be classed as war and predicts that "old-fashioned armies" will continue to fight complex battles with "militias and guerrilla forces" in the years ahead.

Russian cyber-attack spree shows what unrestrained internet warfare looks like

The Sandworm team of Russian military intelligence, alleged to have unleashed computer chaos against the Kremlin’s enemies around the world, is said to operate out of a blue-tinted glass skyscraper known simply as “the tower”.

From that address, 22 Kirova Street in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, the Sandworm hackers, also known more prosaically as the unit 74455 and “the main centre for special technologies”, launched attacks on the Ukrainian power system, Emmanuel Macron’s presidential bid in France in 2017, the South Korean Olympics in 2018 and the UK investigation into the 2018 Russian nerve agent attack in Salisbury.

According to cyber security experts, the same unit was involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s election campaign in 2016, disguised as a hacktivist group dubbed Fancy Bear.

On Monday, US and UK authorities accused the unit of planning a cyberattack on the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo.

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