Search

Begin New Search Author Fabio Rugge

1. "Mind Hacking": Information Warfare in the Cyber Age

Author:
Fabio Rugge
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
The good old days of cold war disinformatia are gone. Social media are increasingly relevant in shaping the public opinion, but they are just “eco chambers”. Foreign actors with malicious intent can easily exploit this intrinsic feature of social media manipulating online information in order to influence the public opinion. Moreover, cyberspace allows a large degree of anonymity, behind which it is easy to automate propaganda, and cyber attacks may be leveraged to exfiltrate and expose sensitive content or to gain information dominance during military operations, increasing the strategic relevance of the “information space”. Operations in this domain are central in Russia’s security strategic thinking, featuring predominantly in its “New Generation War” military doctrine. But the ongoing militarization of cyberspace risks having dangerous spillovers in the conventional domain. What can we do in order to protect our open democracies while preserving a global, free and resilient Internet? The answer is multi-faceted, in as much as CEIW (cyber-enabled information warfare) is an emerging asymmetric threat that forces us to innovate our security approach in many ways.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Social Media
Political Geography:
Russia and Global Focus

2. Confronting an “Axis of Cyber”? China, Iran, North Korea, Russia in Cyberspace

Author:
Fabio Rugge
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
The year 2018 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Morris worm, the first malware ever released in the Internet. Thirty years later, technological innovations have dramatically increased the importance of the Internet in virtually every economic, social and political endeavor, tremendously expanding the potential “surface” of cyber attacks. The cyber domain makes it possible to gather privileged information, disrupt industrial processes, create havoc by targeting, for instance, ICT supporting critical infrastructures, and to launch cyber-enabled information warfare campaigns against largely unaware foreign target audiences. Cyberspace, in sum, allows states to achieve strategic results with campaigns that fall below the threshold of the “use of force”, while offering an unprecedented level of plausible deniability, as the real perpetrator of a cyber attack is always difficult to identify with certainty. And yet, this is only the beginning: we are in the midst of a digital revolution. By 2025, with the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the cyber domain will connect more than 75 billion devices, many of which will control key functions of our daily lives and most of our critical infrastructures.
Topic:
International Affairs and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Global Focus