Optimizing Cyberdeterrence: A Comprehensive Strategy for Preventing Foreign Cyberattacks by Robert Mandel

Author:Robert Mandel [Mandel, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Science & Technology Policy, Political Science, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781626164147
Google: lSEQDgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 33255021
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Published: 2017-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Case Study Patterns

Isolating cyberdeterrence patterns in the case studies is challenging due to the sketchiness of some of the details and to the inappropriateness of many of the targets’ responses. Nonetheless, this chapter identifies the most significant case insights relevant to cyberdeterrence. This discussion begins with direct, empirically derived conditions promoting cyberattack success, and then it moves to more indirect cyberdeterrence case lessons.

Tables 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 provide data for the twenty elements of the twelve case profiles, with patterns seeming generalizable because the cases are representative of twenty-first-century foreign cyberattacks with major security implications. For the cyberattack cases, the data is broken into four categories: (1) the background attributes of initiator identity, initiator type, target identity, target type, and disruption dates; (2) the initiator stimuli of security goal, confrontation trigger, attack method, attribution clarity, and violence presence; (3) the target responses of cyber capacity, power disadvantage (of targets compared to initiators), cyber dependence, long-run reaction, and outside aid; and (4) the strategic outcomes of attack indirectness, security impact (short-run), tit-for-tat cycle, conflict contagion, and threat persistence.

Notable case breach patterns emerged. For cyberattackers, while their attribution was consistently low, most appeared to be non-state groups—including two recognized terrorist groups—working alone or indirectly with the hidden complicity of ethnically connected authoritarian state sponsors. Russia chose mostly to pursue security influence through cyberespionage against political and military targets, while China at least in recent years has chosen to pursue economic gain through cybertheft of intellectual property and financial account information.1 Although the attack methods were similar, the policy ends differed. Most initiator goals focused on cyberespionage, crippling government functioning, or reducing government autonomy. In terms of initiator attack methods, social media often played an important role as a facilitator, with denial of service (referred to by some as a “cyber blockade”2), data corruption or theft, and website defacement as the disruption modes of choice. Some initiators emphasized propaganda and recruitment, while others focused on data acquisition or immobilization. For cyberdefenders, most exhibited little internal disagreement, did not have a reputation for successful retaliation, and were cyber dependent and associated with Western or Western-sympathizing states. Two targets were international organizations, and two others were businesses. The record of targets receiving effective outside aid was highly uneven, and targets differed in their internal and external openness regarding their cyberattacks and cyber vulnerabilities.

TABLE 5.1.

CYBERATTACK CASE BACKGROUND ATTRIBUTES

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.