Today, I read the article “Social Cybersecurity: An Emerging National Security Requirement” by Lieutenant Colonel David M. Beskow and Dr. Kathleen M. Carley.  The article discusses the growing threat of social cybersecurity attacks and the need for a comprehensive approach to defending against them.  I was especially interested in the sections of the article that discussed the Russian Information Blitzkrieg, the forms of social-cyber maneuver, and the two changes that are enabling cyber threats.

It mentions how back in 2013, information warfare was identified as one of the main aspects of Russian warfare.  When it briefly mentions the “active measures” operations of the Russian KGB (which was a security service in the Soviet Union), it forms a comparison between those operations back then, and the information warfare initiatives nowadays.  In other words, there’s a connection between the “active measures” (which mentions weakening the United States), and the Russian Information Blitzkrieg.  This is an idea worth considering, as it focuses on fracturing a nation in order to decrease its chances of being able to withstand an attack.  It’s also interesting how it talks about the Russian Academy of Sciences producing research that claims to be defensive, but it’s believed that it’s likely applied to their offensive operations.  One example it mentions is a political technologist named Alexander Malkevich, who made the USAreally.com website before the American midterm elections in 2018.

Perhaps my favorite part of this article was when it presented a table of the BEND model of social cybersecurity forms of maneuver.  At first, I was confused by the acronym, but then I realized how each letter stands for 4 different words.  It uses words with a positive connotation that start with B or E for social & knowledge network manipulation respectively, and words with a negative connotation that start with N or D for the same respective manipulation types.  This model aligns with the description of how networks can be social, conversational, or informational.

I also liked reading about the two changes that are enabling cyber threats.  One is the fact that technology allows individuals to influence society without needing to be physically close to a specific geographic location.  The other is the reality of the decentralization of information flows, due to blogging platforms, as well as social media.  This is because news coverage is no longer limited to just printed and televised sources.  Both of these facts highlight the importance of protecting against cyber threats, because of how cyberspace is a worldwide domain (rather than just being located in a singular place in the world), and how anonymity motivates cybercriminals to target their victims and execute their attacks.