U.S. abilities to defeat Syria's air defenses are central to a debate over whether to intervene in the 2-year-old civil war. Electronic methods to disable enemy air defense systems include the injection of malware, a form of computer software, into the air defense network through a computer attack or by traditional electronic warfare aircraft capable of jamming radar.

The radars act like wireless transmitters and jammers can send false or destructive information into the radar, which then gets into the network, said Shlomo Narkolayev, an analyst who previously worked on cyber issues for the Israeli military's Unit 8200, which handles cyberwarfare.

"It's not hard to do this," Narkolayev said.