COI Strategy & Defence organized its second annual Cyber power symposium on hybrid warfare virtually in November 2020. Building on the first cyber power symposium, organized a year ago, the second symposium focused on actor analysis regarding power depiction capabilities and interests of defensive and offensive cyber players in the cyber field.
Key take-aways of the event:
- Cyber power has become an integral component of military and nonmilitary activity on the international arena. With technological advancement, state backed cyberattacks have become regular tools in geopolitical competition.
- The global cyberthreat landscape today is more likely to produce long-term, lingering issues of political subversion and interference, rather than a sudden catastrophic event.
- Cyber-enabled new technologies are proving highly disruptive to traditional security, defence doctrines and legal frameworks in political and institutional contexts, as well as modern battlefields.
- Several powers with global ambitions have begun to incorporate cyber power into their national defence strategies. This is seen for example in upgrades of conventional weapon systems and increased focus on cyber security of critical infrastructure.
- Cyber power is inherently international, as well as a multi domain challenge, which countries and institutions cannot tackle alone. Alliances like NATO and the EU are incremental in enhancing their member states cyber edge.
