When it comes to cyberwar, we're fighting on a virtually unlimited number of fronts, against some of our own resources turned against us. We're fighting against massive weapons systems built by our enemies from readily available consumer products that are easily accessible and affordable. According to CNN, the U.S. spent a minimum of $5,821 billion on nuclear weapons programs from 1940 to 1996. While a cyberattack is unlikely to cause the loss of life of a hydrogen bomb, our enemies need to spend merely $314 to deploy a weapons system that may have an even greater reach than a nuclear warhead in terms of overall infrastructure and economic damage.

At the beginning of this article, I said cyberwar was inevitable because of the low barrier to entry and the very high yield. I've shown that the enemy combatants in a cyberwar will constitute far more than just identifiable nation states and will include for-profit businesses, very bright children, and terrorists with many different agendas. I showed how the weapons systems used will consist of incredibly cheap consumer personal computers and even video game consoles.

I showed how attacks will come not only from outside our borders, but from legions of zombie computers attacking us from within our own homes and offices. And I've shown how cyberwar attacks can damage us economically as well as wreak havoc with our critical infrastructure services.

But what can we do about it? How can we defend ourselves? Can we defend ourselves?

Quite honestly, I despair of giving you good news. Nearly all cyberattacks rely on exploiting an inherent vulnerability or sloppiness in our internal security. But because attacks can be perpetrated through our own poorly informed citizenry and because of the high-level of knowledge necessary to insulate our systems from attack, there can be no doubt about the inevitable conclusion:

Cyberwar is coming,

Nota bene: We can take some steps to protect ourselves. Simple actions like updating virus definitions regularly, installing operating system updates, and never opening email attachments can help. Upgraded versions of operating systems more and more aware of vulnerabilities will also, over time, reduce some of our exposure. And consumer education, encouraging a higher level of understanding about computer security, can reduce our overall vulnerability by some percentage.

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.