S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)

Fight in Cyberspace – The State Strikes Back

New Sunday Times (Malaysia)

15 January 2017

Eugene E. G. Tan

ENSURING that the state is secure from cyberthreats is increasingly becoming the priority of states all over the world, sometimes clashing with concerns over privacy. There are four notable ways that states have increased their presence in cyberspace last year, and this presence is forecast to become more prominent this year.

Last year, there were four main ways that states had tried to use cyberspace to either raise the level of security in cyberspace, or affect the security stance of other states.

First, to misquote Clausewitz, states are increasingly using cyber as an extension of policy by other means. Russia was accused by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security in October last year for interfering with the United States presidential elections.

The agencies charged that the Russians hacked into the computers of the Democratic National Congress (DNC), and then leaked the emails to WikiLeaks to discredit the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, whom they thought would be less favourable to Russian interests.

This episode provides an interesting twist to what is considered to be the critical information infrastructure (CII) in any given state.

… The writer is an associate research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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