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Lecture notes International Cybersecurity
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Lecture notes from the course International Cybersecurity, in English. Lecture notes on International Cybersecurity in English.
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Lectures International CybersecurityLecture 1: Introduction
- We live our lives increasingly more online
-> a lot of data is produced daily.
-> our economy, society and politics are embedded in cyberspace.
- While the use of cyberspace increases prosperity and security, it also exposes us to
vulnerabilities and a critical dependence on cyberspace.
-> anything connected to the internet can be hacked, everything is being connected to the
internet and as a result, everything is becoming vulnerable.
- Harm in cyberspace
-> two dimensions: intentional or accidental, physical or informational
- Managing cybersecurity became one of the most prominent challenges of the 21st century.
-> state and non-state actors are increasingly using cyberspace to achieve their goals below the
threshold of armed conflict.
-> there are significant advances in developing national strategies to deal with cybersecurity as
a national security issue.
-> states are deeply concerned about vulnerabilities and potential of cyber conflict escalating
outside of cyberspace.
-> states are active in developing rules of the road and are engaged in international
negotiations with the aim to build cyber norms.
- Why study international cybersecurity?
-> increasingly integral to national and international security (one of the most prominent
challenges of the 21st century)
-> cybersecurity influences politics data leaks, espionage, cyber-enabled influence operations
(CEIOs), offensive cyber operations
-> politics influences cybersecurity national cybersecurity strategies, cyber
diplomacy/alliances, policy, law, and cyberspace
Cyberspace
- ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency) 1957 USSR launched Sputnik successfully on
top of a missile.
-> in USA it became a cause for panic fear was that the USSR would be able to successfully
launch nuclear missiles, and that the USA would not be able to send one back.
- They wanted to invest in science to build a network system that would be able to survive a
nuclear attack ARPA and NASA were established.
-> connect several computers together in a network with ARPANET (1969 first message)
-> firstly, it was to communicate between academic centers.
- Over the next decades, it developed into the internet as we know it.
-> size might be incalculable (devices, websites, users, etc.)
- The internet was developed in academic centers, and the people who developed it were
scientists and scholars people who did not share militaristic incentives.
-> they had ideas about freedoms the internet was supposed to bring about.
, - Cybernetics symbiotic relationship between the human and the machine (computer)
-> to improve decision making
-> another idea was that humans each communicate, and that computers would also be able to.
- Cyber utopianism idea that cyberspace helps bring about a decentralized, libertarian,
democratic society
-> no role for states to impose rules virtual environment of independence (for example, John
Perry Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace in 1996)
-> things might have changed these days platforms have their own political alignments and
exist in the ‘real’ world.
- There are multiple definitions of cyberspace, some acknowledge the physical factors, others only
acknowledge the virtual space.
-> William Gibson (1984): “A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate
operators, in every nation, by children taught mathematical concepts…”
-> Cambridge dictionary: “the internet considered as an imaginary area without limits where you
can meet people and discover information about any subject”
-> U.S. Department of Defense: “domain characterized by the use of electronics and the
electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and
associated physical infrastructures.”
-> NIST: “the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures that includes the
Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and
controllers in critical industries.”
- The definition used has implications for how we think about security.
-> U.S. Department of Defense uses the word ‘domain’, which is used for sea, land and space
treated as other, physical domains.
- Reaction to Barlow’s declaration:
-> Nicolas Sarkozy in 2011 at G8 Conference: "the universe that you represent is not a parallel
universe which is free of rules of law or ethics or of any of the fundamental principles that must
govern and do govern the social lives of our democratic states.”
-> David Drummond, Google General Counsel: "governments have learned in what might be the
steepest learning curve in history that they can shape this global phenomenon called the
Internet and in ways that often go beyond what they can do in the physical world, and they’re
doing so at an alarming pace.”
- Takeaway: more and more implications in our lives and dynamics, and more negative use.
Cybersecurity
- Also multiple definitions, among which:
-> protecting confidentiality, integrity, availability of information systems (International Cyber
Strategy Netherlands 2023-2028)
-> set of policies, strategies, and behaviors that protect digital networks and content so that
secure accurate data possession and transmission occurs within the parameters of authorized
functional operations and regulatory legal frameworks.
- Three perspectives on cybersecurity:
1. National perspective: territory, sovereignty and conflict
2. Individual perspective: rights, privacy and connections
3. Commercial perspective: profit, risk, reputation
-> in this class, mostly national and international perspective.
- What is cybersecurity?
-> a practice occurs at multiple levels: individual, business/non-state organizations, national
governments, internationally.
-> types of strategies: defense, offense, deterrence (and cyberpersistance)
, -> types of threats: external and internal
-> conceptually a fifth dimension (air, land, sea, outerspace, cyberspace)
- Cybersecurity can be discussed as a technological challenge, but it is also a challenge for
national security.
Lecture 2 – Cyber conflict: conceptual challenges
Feeding public imagination of cyberwar
Stuxnet/”Olympic Games”
- A cyber event: cyber attack began in 2007
-> caused physical damage to Iranian centrifuges, destroying 1-2 thousand.
- For the first three years, it was undetected, destroying a limited number of centrifuges in a way
designed to look like user error.
-> idea: centrifuges will be failing randomly for no apparent reason.
- In 2010, it was unexpectedly discovered by computer security experts in Belarus after the worm
inadvertently spread outside Iran’s nuclear facilities.
- It was never intended to be detected and was set up to stop itself in 2012.
- Random closed exit valves on centrifuges so that gas would be trapped.
-> over time caused the failure of centrifuges (damage over time and wasted gas)
- Two stories about how malware was planted:
-> water pump Dutch engineer that was supposed to install water pumps but installed
malware; or via usb drive
- Israel and United States are allegedly behind this attack on Iran.
-> because they were afraid that Iran would get uranium for nuclear weapons.
-> during the war on terrorism, USA was already in Iraq (looking for weapons of mass
destruction), engaging in another conflict would be unfeasible (so no bombing)
-> so using new technology to undermine the enrichment of uranium in a stealthy way without
necessarily inviting international scrutiny (‘go quietly’)
- David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and
International Security: “the idea clearly is to try to disrupt operations that could lead to a nuclear
weapon, and to make their scientists feel less secure and less capable of doing their work.”
-> make them feel they were stupid, which is what happened.
- Cyberweapon was designed to make Iranians think that their engineers were incapable of
running an enrichment facility.
-> nobody knew why the centrifuges were failing.
- Effects:
-> direct effect: marked decrease (10%) in centrifuge activity in 2009
-> indirect effect: mistrust in scientific community, fear of insider threat, other intrusions.
- Limitations: highly customized capability (single-use, single-target), Iran recovered within 6
months.
- Stuxnet fed into the public imagination of cyber war.
-> it had physical implications, states on states, said to have pushed Iran to the negotiation
table.
- There were exaggerations in the threat perception (‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’, ‘cyber-Hiroshima
bomb’, ‘the world’s first cyber super weapon’)
-> Iran recovered quickly, nobody died, relatively small impact
Cyberthreat
- Incentives to hype the cyberthreat:
-> academic: to help researchers to get funding
-> commercial: selling the solution for a ‘huge threat’
- Reagan became concerned about cyber threat after seeing the movie ‘Wargames’ (1983)
-> triggered research and inquiry into the potential of a cyber war.
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