In its all-encompassing fifth annual Virtual Criminology Report released on Tuesday, security firm McAfee has cautioned that warfare can extend to the cyber arena - with countries like Russia, China, France, Israel and the US quietly involved in the process of expanding their computerized armory.

The report is based on the assimilation of interviews from over 20 experts from various fields - like national defense, international relations, and computer security. These experts have noted that there has been an increase in politically-motivated online attacks, network infiltrations and digital espionage.

Noting that having the superpowers of the world have the requisite technological capability to coordinate state-to-state online attacks, the McAfee report that renowned security experts are deliberating on the need to enhance cyber-warfare capabilities, as well as the risks that key infrastructures, tied to the Internet, face.

About the supposed digital warfare scenario, Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee's VP of threat research, said: "We believe we're seeing something a little like a cyber-Cold War, where these nations have the ability to integrate these capabilities to their military strategies but are still very hesitant to launch these attacks."

Alperovitch further added that the hesitation of launching politically-motivated cyber-attacks results from the countries' awareness of the fact that "the Internet is the ultimate equalizer, and there's still a great chance of a strategic attack blowing back and affecting the country that launched it."