Friday, April 3, 2015

Cyberwarfare and Cyberterrorism - Excellent CRS Report

In my life in security I try to monitor several topics.  Two topics I'm often checking -- usually through Google News Alerts -- are cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism.  This week I came across an excellent summary report from the Congressional Research Service on this very topic.



This 12-page summary document is an excellent overview of these topics and also provides some comparisons between cyberterrorism, cybercrime, cyberespionage, cyberwarfare, and cybervandalism.

The document can be downloaded at: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43955.pdf 

A high level view of the key headings in the document (below) will give you a view of the document and its contents.

  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • The Cyberwarfare Ecosystem: A Variety of Threat Actors
  • Cyberwarfare
  • Rules of the Road and Norm-Building in Cyberspace
    • Law of Armed Conflict
    • Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime
    • United Nations General Assembly Resolutions
    • International Telecommunications Regulations
    • Other International Law
  • Cyberterrorism
  • Use of the Military: Offensive Cyberspace Operations
Overall, this is an excellent and fairly rapid read on this contemporary subject and I'd recommend it be viewed by students, policy makers and all cybersecurity professionals.

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