Title

The long-term cost of cyber overreaction

Authors

Jan Kallberg, Army Cyber InstituteFollow

Document Type

Editorial

USMA Research Unit Affiliation

Army Cyber Institute

Publication Date

5-27-2021

Abstract

The default modus operandi when facing negative cyber events is to overreact. It is essential to highlight the cost of overreaction, which needs to be a part of calculating when to engage and how. For an adversary probing cyber defenses, reactions provide information that can aggregate a clear picture of the defendant’s capabilities and preauthorization thresholds.

Ideally, potential adversaries cannot assess our strategic and tactical cyber capacities, but over time and numerous responses, the information advantage evaporates. A reactive culture triggered by cyberattacks provides significant information to a probing adversary, which seeks to understand underlying authorities and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP).

The more we act, the more the potential adversary understands our capacity, ability, techniques and limitations. I am not advocating a passive stance, but I want to highlight the price of acting against a potential adversary. With each reaction, that competitor gainscertainty about what we can do and how. The political scientist Kenneth N. Waltz said that the power of nuclear arms resides with what you could do and not within what you do. A large part of the cyber force strength resides in the uncertainty in what it can do, which should be difficult for a potential adversary to assess and gauge.

Why does it matter? In an operational environment where the adversaries operate under the threshold for open conflict, in sub-threshold cyber campaigns, an adversary will seek to probe in order to determine the threshold, and to ensure that it can operate effectively in the space below the threshold. If a potential adversary cannot gauge the threshold, it will curb its activities as its cyber operations must remain adequately distanced to a potential, unknown threshold to avoid unwanted escalation.

Web Link

https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2021/05/27/the-long-term-cost-of-cyber-overreaction/