Nov. 14, 2022

Deterrence Thru Transparent Offensive Cyber Persistence

State-enabled cyber campaigns are achieving cumulative, strategic effects on the United States. A lack of transparency limits offensive cyber capabilities from affecting the cost-benefit decisions of malicious cyber actors. However, recent operations suggest the United States can positively attribute malicious cyber activities, impose significant consequences with offensive cyber force, and translate those actions into deterrence of specific malicious activities using public communication. Persistent, public disclosure is necessary for offensive cyberspace operations to deter malicious cyber activities, nested with US strategic guidance, and achievable based on recent cyberspace operations. Transparent Offensive Cyber Persistence combines persistence with post factum, public disclosure of the justification, targets, and impacts of offensive cyber force, exchanging information for deterrence credibility. This work evaluates its suitability, acceptability, feasibility, and risks. Transparent Offensive Cyber Persistence exploits the relative advantages of offense in cyberspace to impose costs directly on malicious cyber actors, compel targets to defend everywhere, dissuade other actors, set a legitimate narrative of consequences for unacceptable malicious cyber activities, and shape international norms.

Nov. 14, 2022

Ethical Assessment of Russian Election Interference

The consistent development of information and communication technologies poses new ethical challenges for military leaders and policymakers in the fifth domain of warfare—cyberspace. This article engages a relatively new ethical framework known as Just Information Warfare (JIW) to assess one of the highest profile instances of information warfare in recent years—Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. First, we define information warfare and describe how concepts from two well-known ethical theories—Just War Theory and Information Ethics—merge to create JIW. Next, we analyze Russian military officers' 2016 election interference efforts and the corresponding US response through a JIW lens. Finally, we offer three key takeaways from our analysis that warrant further thought.

Nov. 14, 2022

Regulating Cyber Warfare Through the United Nations

Cyber warfare is an emerging type of conflict threatening international establishments such as international humanitarian law and the norms guiding interactions between states. Currently, with no means to slow down their use, the rate at which cyber weapons are being produced and launched between states is growing. One organization that can change that is the United Nations. The United Nations possesses several facilities that make it a powerful tool to address the ever-expanding problem of international cyber security. While other options for imposing regulations exist, state governments should favor the United Nations as the premier platform to address this issue.

Nov. 14, 2022

Cyberspace in Peace and War, 2nd Edition (Book Review)

Martin Libicki’s Cyberspace in Peace and War (2nd Edition) is a cyberwar strategy masterpiece. At this point in my career, rarely do I read books that are so impactful. Readers of Libicki’s second edition will ultimately understand almost all aspects of deterrence, the shifting thinking on cyberspace-based effects as an element of national power, and whether cyber deterrence is achievable. Most importantly, readers will be treated to a sober assessment of "cyberwar" rather than predictions of an imminent "cyber-9/11" This important difference takes the focus off preventing a single catastrophic event and instead highlights the increasing complexity of executing cyber operations in a world of digital connectivity. Libicki claims this distinction, plus the many actors utilizing cyberspace, causes difficulties in establishing deterrence in and through cyberspace.

Aug. 16, 2022

Introduction: An Offensive Future?

The recent cyberattacks against Colonial Pipeline and Solar Winds in the United States, the Health Service Executive in Ireland, and extensive and ongoing cyber activity in Ukraine highlight the continuing threats and complex security needs of our interdependent societies. Such operations and attacks are conducted by states that do not claim to possess offensive cyber capabilities, such as Russia and China, or by sophisticated cybercriminal gangs who commonly deploy ransomware, particularly with “hack and leak” operations, to generate an enormous amount of revenue. In response, many states have developed cyber capabilities to address the growing insecurity of states, their citizens, and various communities, with varying degrees of success and organization. Thus, as states have been establishing more assertive responses to malicious cyber activities through offensive cyber forces or units of their own, there has been a concurrent development of connecting this with broader cyber security, resilience, and capacity building, often around the pursuit and projection of cyber power.

Aug. 16, 2022

Prepare and Prevent, Don’t Repair and Repent

Insurance is often treated purely as a tool to mitigate financial risk. The insured can pay a premium for the confidence that if a cyber-attack occurs, they are indemnified for their losses. This paper advocates that insurance can play a more significant role dealing with offensive cyber, by way of relying upon a reinsurance framework. An appropriate insurance framework which assists a non-state actor before, during, and after an attack can facilitate a coordinated response to supporting a state’s national security objectives. When a state opts to use an offensive cyber operation, there is a risk that the operation will inflict unintended consequences/harms and will trigger a retaliatory attack. The proposed reinsurance framework would assist in improving a business’s resilience and security. An underlying reinsurance regime will ensure the framework transfers risk from a specific business and spreads it across society. This paper argues that by reducing and responding to risks and unintended consequences of offensive cyber operations with reinsurance, a state’s offensive cyber strategy may receive a more favourable reception from society. This reduces the risk that an offensive cyber strategy may delegitimise the state.

Aug. 16, 2022

Exploit Brokers and Offensive Cyber Operations

A necessary step in conducting offensive cyber operations is developing or acquiring an exploit, i.e., a means for taking advantage of a software vulnerability or security deficiency. While these can be developed within government agencies, they can also be procured from private actors. Studying these private markets present an opportunity to understand offensive cyber operations, especially as markets break from the secretive culture of intelligence agencies. This article provides novel evidence of such opportunities by collecting data in the form of the prices quoted by an exploit broker who claims to sell to governments. We find exploit price inflation of 44% per annum, and higher prices for exploits targeting mobile devices relative to desktop devices. Exploits requiring additional capabilities like physical access to the device are quoted at a discount, and no-click remote access vulnerabilities carry a heavy premium. The broker does not quote prices for any exploits that specifically target industrial control systems or IoT devices. We conclude by discussing how these results inform the future of offensive cyber.

Aug. 16, 2022

Democracies and the Future of Offensive (Cyber-Enabled) Information Operations

Cyber-enabled information operations that exploit social media to shape narratives and societal perception vex Western democracies which have long treated the free flow of information as a virtue. Despite these tensions, Western democracies have sought to adapt their cyber forces both to counter and to manipulate social media and other information operations as an offensive weapon. This article evaluates how these democracies thus far have responded to information operations with a focus on offensive information and cyber operations. The article analyzes three topics relevant to the future of democracies and cyber-enabled information operations. First, is an explanation as to why Western democracies failed to anticipate the threat of cyber-enabled information operations. Second, the article catalogs and compares how four major Western democracies have responded to information operations—US, UK, France, and Germany. The final section evaluates whether and how democracies should practice offensive cyber-enabled information operations, and why, in the end, the article concludes that democracies should avoid offensive cyber-enabled information operations because they pose three tensions that undermine democracy: Internet fragmentation, violations of democratic norms, and blowback.

Aug. 16, 2022

Between Two Stools: Military and Intelligence Organizations

From 2018, members of the coalition fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria confirmed that they had been conducting offensive cyber activities as part of the campaign in an operation given the codename GLOWING SYMPHONY.[1] While the details of these operations largely remain highly classified, they are the first example of states publicly admitting to such operations during armed conflict. They are also notable as while Fleming in his speech cited above emphasized that the UK effort resulted from cooperation between its signals intelligence (SIGINT) agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence (MOD), one of the other partners, Australia, emphasized the role of civilian personnel from its SIGINT organization, the Australian Signals Directorate. This was arguably the first public recognition of the extent to which, at least in some states, intelligence organizations and the military were entwined in the conduct of contemporary offensive cyber operations.

Aug. 16, 2022

Three Conditions for Cyber Countermeasures

This article explores a variety of opportunities and challenges with the use of cyberspace countermeasures. It critically assesses a set of conditions under which countermeasures can be an appropriate means of offensive cyber: limited aim of defense and deterrence, protection of critical infrastructure, and compliance with rules of behavior. Here, the article shows that countermeasures must be taken for the purpose of active defense and deterrence. Second, they can be appropriate as a means of defending critical infrastructure. Finally, they should be executed by state actors who comply with existing principles of cyberspace behavior. While cyberspace countermeasures can become a socially accepted, legitimate means of active defense and deterrence, the article shows that there are several challenges connected with each of these conditions. For one, there are various degrees of feasibility about what conditions are appropriate for countermeasures. The article also discusses inherent problems in the application of international law, from which rules of engagement are drawn, to cyberspace. The challenges are hard to solve, which may explain why it has been so difficult for the international community to produce a set of agreeable criteria for active defense measures.