Banks and utilities will be on the front line when nations turn to cyber warfare, and there is evidence some of that's occurring right now, according to a new report.

The report, by security vendor McAfee, says: "The critical
infrastructure of nation-states—banking and finance, electrical grids, oil and gas refineries and pipelines, water and sanitation utilities, telecommunications systems—are all likely targets in future wars. In many countries, especially in the West, private ownership of these utilities means that private companies will likely be caught in the crossfire."

The report warns that nations are already "ramping up their capabilities in cyber space, in what some have referred to as a cyber arms race."

The alarming part is that some of this might be happening right now. The report looks at whether denial-of-service (DOS) attacks which bombarded websites belonging to the White House, US intelligence agencies, the US Defence Department, the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Amazon and Yahoo over the July fourth holiday weekend originated in North Korea; the following Tuesday, the same network of 50,000 computers brought down 11 South Korean government websites. And then, there were the mass DOS attacks directed at the nation of Georgia by Russian civilians last August. That coincided with Russian forces were mounting a ground assault in a dispute over the Georgian province of South Ossetia.

In other words, cyber warfare is already happening. And as Time magazine reports, China is already embracing cyber warfare. "Cyberwarfare is a key component in the Chinese military's strategic vision for defeating the technologically superior U.S. in any future conflict,'' says Time. "That means conducting so-called asymmetrical warfare, aimed at using the U.S.'s dependence on technology as a weapon: for example, targeting America's network of space satellites or developing missiles that could sink U.S. aircraft carriers. For China's generals, though, of all the asymmetrical methods of attack available to them, cyberwar presents a uniquely effective — and cost-effective — means of neutralizing the U.S advantage."

Cyber warfare is not the future, it's here now.