TY - GEN
T1 - Covert or not Covert
T2 - 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict: Silent Battle, CyCon 2019
AU - Baram, Gil
AU - Sommer, Udi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 NATO CCD COE.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Anonymity is considered to be a key characteristic of cyber conflict. Indeed, existing accounts in the literature focus on the advantages of the non-disclosure of cyber attacks. Such focus inspires the expectation that countries would opt to maintain covertness. This hypothesis is rejected in an empirical investigation we conducted on victims' strategies during cyber conflict: in numerous cases, victim states choose to publicly reveal the fact that they had been attacked. These counterintuitive findings are important empirically, but even more so theoretically. They motivate an investigation into the decision to forsake covertness. What does actually motivate states to move into the international arena and publicly expose a cyber attack? The goal of this paper is to understand why and under which geopolitical circumstances countries choose to give up the advantages of anonymity. Whether they wish to Name and Shame opponents for ignoring international norms or whether they try to avoid public humiliation, victims of cyber attacks occasionally reveal the fact that they had been attacked. There is tension between such motivations and the will to protect intelligence sources and the incentives to prevent escalation if an attack is revealed, even more so if the attacker is exposed. Indeed, we find that sunk costs, counter-escalation risks and the need to signal resolve-while critical in motivating victims to keep cyber attacks secret-may not suffice under such specific circumstances. By focusing on the victim's side, we draw inspiration from data on real-world cyber attacks in order to place cyber operations in the larger context of secrecy and covert actions in the international arena. In so doing, the aim is to advance the use of empirical data for understanding the dynamics of cyber conflict and the decision-making process of states operating in this increasingly complex domain.
AB - Anonymity is considered to be a key characteristic of cyber conflict. Indeed, existing accounts in the literature focus on the advantages of the non-disclosure of cyber attacks. Such focus inspires the expectation that countries would opt to maintain covertness. This hypothesis is rejected in an empirical investigation we conducted on victims' strategies during cyber conflict: in numerous cases, victim states choose to publicly reveal the fact that they had been attacked. These counterintuitive findings are important empirically, but even more so theoretically. They motivate an investigation into the decision to forsake covertness. What does actually motivate states to move into the international arena and publicly expose a cyber attack? The goal of this paper is to understand why and under which geopolitical circumstances countries choose to give up the advantages of anonymity. Whether they wish to Name and Shame opponents for ignoring international norms or whether they try to avoid public humiliation, victims of cyber attacks occasionally reveal the fact that they had been attacked. There is tension between such motivations and the will to protect intelligence sources and the incentives to prevent escalation if an attack is revealed, even more so if the attacker is exposed. Indeed, we find that sunk costs, counter-escalation risks and the need to signal resolve-while critical in motivating victims to keep cyber attacks secret-may not suffice under such specific circumstances. By focusing on the victim's side, we draw inspiration from data on real-world cyber attacks in order to place cyber operations in the larger context of secrecy and covert actions in the international arena. In so doing, the aim is to advance the use of empirical data for understanding the dynamics of cyber conflict and the decision-making process of states operating in this increasingly complex domain.
KW - covert actions
KW - cyber operations
KW - national cyber strategies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069223863&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.23919/CYCON.2019.8756682
DO - 10.23919/CYCON.2019.8756682
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AN - SCOPUS:85069223863
T3 - International Conference on Cyber Conflict, CYCON
BT - 2019 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict
A2 - Minarik, Tomas
A2 - Alatalu, Siim
A2 - Biondi, Stefano
A2 - Signoretti, Massimiliano
A2 - Tolga, Ihsan
A2 - Visky, Gabor
PB - NATO CCD COE Publications
Y2 - 28 May 2019 through 31 May 2019
ER -