The Danger of Ignoring the 'Espionage' in Cyber Espionage
The Danger of Ignoring the 'Espionage' in Cyber Espionage
Author: Scott Stewart
This week, I had the honor of delivering a keynote speech for the Global Cyber Security Leaders Conference in Berlin. The city, which decades ago was a hub of Cold War-era espionage, provided the perfect backdrop for my attempt to put its modern cousin — cyber espionage — into context.
One need only glance at the headlines to see that all things cyber are attracting quite a bit of attention these days. From vulnerabilities in the Internet of Things and distributed denial of service attacks to the hack of the Democratic National Committee, it is becoming increasingly clear that digital information is not as secure as it was once thought to be. Because of this, I'd like to share my thoughts on cyber espionage with Stratfor's readers.
One of Many Tools
First, I want to be clear about what I mean when I say "cyber espionage." As I am using it, the term simply refers to any espionage committed against a computer system. So, according to this definition, cyber attacks are just one tool in the espionage toolbox, alongside many other methods of attacking a computer system including human, signal and imagery intelligence.
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