There is a fog settling across the general populace, the civic space, due to lack of situational understanding and the broader characteristics of cyberspace. These characteristics include hyper and inter-connectivity, virtuality, expansion and ambiguity. The current threat landscape consists of all types of actors, from script kiddies, malicious employees, to state-sponsored proxies and nation states, all with various levels of expertise and motivations. Cyber warfare or conflict is associated with attacks and exploitation of computer networks.
The term ‘fog of war’ was first associated with a well-known war strategist, Carl von Clausewitz and it applies to confusion, uncertainty and lack of perspective in battle. Today, the fog of civic cyber warfare produces doubts about the level of trust of information provided from cyberspace. In the current climate almost anything cyber, digital or connected is now considered trustless. An end-user cannot trust anything on a cell phone, or laptop, storage device, cloud applications or hardware. So, what can be done to restore our trust?
In the military context, the ‘fog of war’ has been decreasing as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities continue to improve. However, the cyber battlespace has shifted and now includes the civilian populace. In the civilian environment, uncertainty, confusion, lack of clear information, poor cyber literacy and technological competency provides a platform for digital and physical exploitation or indeed a form of ‘civic cyber warfare’…Click here to read full article.
