View source for Cyber Security and Politically, Socially and Religiously Motivated Cyber Attacks

==Full Title of Reference==

Cyber Security and Politically, Socially and Religiously Motivated Cyber Attacks

==Full Citation==

Paul Cornish, ''Cyber Security and Politically, Socially and Religiously Motivated Cyber Attacks'', Report Commissioned by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs (2009). [http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/download/-/id/702/file/13346_0209_eu_cybersecurity.pdf ''Web''] 

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/?title=Special:Bibliography&view=detailed&startkey=Cornish:2009&f=wikibiblio.bib ''BibTeX'']

==Categorization==

Issues: [[Incentives]]; [[International Cooperation]]; [[Threats and Actors]]

==Key Words== 

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Glossary_of_Core_Ideas#Casus_Belli ''Casus Belli''],
[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Glossary_of_Core_Ideas#Cyber_Warfare Cyber Warfare],
[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Glossary_of_Core_Ideas#State_Affiliation State Affiliation]

==Synopsis==

This paper examines Cyber-Security and Politically, Socially and Religiously 
Motivated Cyber-Attacks, focusing on the European Union as an international 
organisation with a fragmented yet developing interest in cyber-security.  The paper is 
presented in three parts.  Part 1assesses the source and nature of cyber threats.  
Society’s increasing dependence on Information and Communications Technology 
(ICT) infrastructure creates vulnerabilities and corresponding opportunities to be 
exploited by the unscrupulous, ranging from low-level, individual computer hacking to 
serious and organised crime, ideological and political extremism, and state-sponsored 
cyber attacks such as those perpetrated against Estonia in 2007.  ICT also has an 
important enabling function in each of these cases.  The Internet seems to fit the 
requirements of ideological and political extremists particularly well, and governments 
can only expect the ‘ungoverned space’ of the global ICT infrastructure to be ever more 
closely contested.  At the level of states and governments, it is clear that in some 
quarters the Internet is becoming viewedas a battlefield where conflict can be won or 
lost.  The threats can inter-connect when circumstances demand– terrorist groups, for 
example, can be sophisticated users of the Internet but can also make use of low-level 
criminal methods such as hacking in order to raise funds.  The challenge to cyber- 
security policy-makers is therefore not only broad, but complex and evolutionary.  

Part 2 reviews current multilateral initiatives to address cyber-security, focusing on 
the work of the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and 
Development, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of 
Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the Group of Eight.  In each case, 
the organisation in question has recognised the breadth and complexity of the cyber- 
security challenge and that its response to the cyber-security challenge can be but one 
part of the whole.  Although national governments are the most important actors in 
cyber-security, others have a contribution to make, including industry and the private 
commercial sector.   Within each organisation there are various balances to be struck: 
between defensive/passive/protective measures, and a more activist or offensive stance; 
between security measures (of whatever sort) and civil liberties; and finally between 
securing the specific interests of a given organisation or government, and the more 
general requirement to create, for the benefit of all legitimate users, an international 
communications and technological environment which is as hostile as possible to the 
activities and ambitions of cyber-terrorists and extremists, cyber-criminals and hackers. 

Part 3 examines European Union’s responses to the cyber-security challenge.  The EU 
is very closely engaged in cyber-security but cannot be said to have a comprehensive 
approach to the problem: the EU’s responses are diverse, lack coherence and could at 
times conflict.  The picture emerges of a vast and ambitious undertaking in government 
and administration, touching upon most conceivable aspects of societal, commercial and 
private life, yet which appears unable to organise a comprehensive approach to cyber- 
security challenges which, if taken together, could be said to threaten the EU 
comprehensively. A more coherent approach could be achieved in one of two ways: either by uniting the EU’s cyber-security efforts around one central strategy (and perhaps even within a new institutional framework); or by seeking a more efficient co-ordination of effort, while maintaining institutional and role specialisations.

==Additional Notes and Highlights==

Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Gerrard Quille, Directorate-General for External Policies of the European Union Policy Department, Brussels.