The dynamics of cyber conflict between rival antagonists, 2001–11

Abstract

Much discussion of the concept of cyberwar, cyber conflict, and the changing dynamic of future security interactions is founded upon the study of what could be, conjured through spectacular flights of the imagination. The goal of this research article is to exhaustively collect information on cyber interactions between rival states in the last decade so that we can delineate the patterns of cyber conflict as reflected by evidence at the international level. The field of cyber security needs a clear return to social science in order to be able to definitively engage the cyber debate with facts, figures, and theory. To that end we provide a dataset of cyber incidents and cyber disputes that spans from 2001 to 2011. Our data include 110 cyber incidents and 45 cyber disputes. Further, we test our theory of cyber conflict which argues that restraint and regionalism should be expected, counter-intuitive to conventional wisdom. We find here that the actual magnitude and pace of cyber disputes among rivals does not match with popular perception; 20 of 126 active rivals engaged in cyber conflict. The interactions that are uncovered are limited in terms of magnitude and frequency suggesting cyber restraint. Further, most of the cyber disputes that are uncovered are regional in tone, defying the unbounded nature of cyberpower. The coming era of cyber conflict may continue to exhibit these patterns despite fears mentioned in the discourse by the media and cyber security professionals.

Automated dictionary generation for political eventcoding

“…The top 12 countries (by volume of events) are plotted and the remaining 70 are grouped into the category “other” for visual clarity. The larger edges conform to the expectations of Valeriano and Maness (2014); regional pairs and rivals are apparent in the graph. The US is most active with China and Russia.…”

Contested public attributions of cyber incidents and the role of academia

“…Finally, academia, so far, has not been a remedy, as researchers use the public record as the baseline for studying cyber conflict (see Valeriano & Maness, 2014). In order for academia to be a check on the biases introduced, it would have to establish itself as a trustworthy source of data and interpretation.…”

Studying the Internet and Violent conflict

“…While the majority of research in this area has focused on interstate wars (see e.g. Gartzke, 2013; Valeriano and Maness, 2014), many of the concepts are applicable to intra-state conflict as well. Ample evidence of distributed denial of service attacks as well as attempts at planting malicious software in the enemy’s military control systems in both the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts confirm that “cyber” capabilities are becoming increasingly important during episodes of domestic political violence (Deibert, Rohozinski and Crete-Nishihata, 2012; Lee, 2016; Shevchenko, 2014).…”