Cyberspace: Malevolent Actors, Criminal Opportunities, and Strategic Competition

This report is intended to provide cyberspace decision-makers with a more comprehensive, clearer description of cyberspace, which they can use to manage and make decisions about cyberspace programs to improve the effectiveness of government in this critically important area. The report offers an assessment of, and recommendations focused on, the unique characteristics of cyberspace, which were initially designed without much focus on security or risk management.  It has three parts: the first focuses on cyberspace, itself; the second on some of the major forms of malevolence or threats that have become one of its defining characteristics; and the third on possible responses to these threats.

One of the most significant features of cyberspace is that it is becoming a risky place for the entire spectrum of users: nation-states, nongovernmental and transnational organizations, commercial enterprises, and individuals. At the same time, it is a space of opportunities—for benevolent, neutral, and malevolent actors. The authors identify and assess the challenges and threats to security that can arise in cyberspace because of its unique nature. In the final section, the authors discuss a variety of responses, with some suggesting that the most favored options being pursued by the United States are poorly conceived and ill-suited to the tasks at hand.

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Other products produced by U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute/SSI can be found here:  https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/1609

Cyberterrorism After Stuxnet can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01117-6

Distinguishing Acts of War in Cyberspace: Assessment Criteria, Policy Considerations, and Response Implications is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01128-1

Cyber Defense: An International View is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01194-0

Table of Contents:

Foreword

1. Introduction

Phil Williams and Dighton Fiddner

Part I: Concepts and Trends in Cyberspace

2. Defining a Framework for Decision-Making in Cyberspace

Dighton Fiddner

3. Emerging Trends in Cyberspace: Dimensions and Dilemmas

Nazli Choucri

4. Technologies That Will Change Your World

Rick Hutley

5. Big Data Challenges, Failed Cities, and the Rise of the New ‘Net

Jeff Boleng and Colin P. Clarke

Part II: Challenges and Threats in Cyberspace

6. Cyberterrorism in a Post-Stuxnet World

Michael Kenney

7. China’s Reconnaissance and System Sabotage Activities: Supporting Information Deterrence

Timothy L. Thomas

8. Information Warfare A La Russe

Stephen J. Blank

9. The Adaptive Nature of Crime: Co-opting the Internet

Shawn C. Hoard, Jeffrey L. Carasiti, and Edward J. Masten

10. Digitally Armed and Dangerous: Humanitarian Intervention in the

Wired World

Ronald J. Deibert and John Scott-Railton

11. The Threat from Inside . . . Your Automobile

Isaac R. Porche III

Part III: Responding to Threats in Cyberspace

12. Reflections on Cyberdeterrence

Martin Libicki

13. Framing Cyberwar and Cybersecurity: Compelling Metaphors and Dubious Policy Templates

Davis B. Bobrow

14. Identifying the Real and Absolute Enemy

Rob van Kranenburg

15. Could the United States Benefit from Cyber-Arms-Control Agreements?

Benoît Morel

16. Transnational Organized Crime and Digilantes in the Cybercommons

Kelsey Ida

17. From Cybercrime to Cyberwar: Indicators and Warnings

Timothy J. Shimeall

18.  Crisis Management in Cyberspace and in a “Cybered” World

Phil Williams

19. Cybered Ways of Warfare: The Emergent Spectrum of Democratized Predation and the Future Cyber-Westphalia Interstate Topology

Chris C. Demchak

20. Conclusion

Dighton Fiddner

About the Contributors

This volume is designed to inform and provoke; as well as assist civilian and military national security, commerce, public sector, and academic decision-makers in un­derstanding the sheer complexity and dynamism of cyberspace, itself.  This resource may also be helpful to students for research in Master's or Undergraduate cybersecurity degree programs or courses pertaining to topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Intrusion Detection & Vulnerability Management, Computer Security, or Digital Forensics.