Cyberspace and the National Security of the United Kingdom: Threats and Responses

 

 

 

Chatham House Report
Paul Cornish, Rex Hughes and David Livingstone, March 2009

 

Society’s increasing dependence on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure creates vulnerabilities and corresponding opportunities to be exploited by unscrupulous actors. Whether through online financial fraud, the dangers posed by hacking, cyber-attacks, or the extensive use of the internet by terrorists and other extremists, the risks to international and national security are increasing.

But cybersecurity is not just the concern of governments, commercial enterprises, or individuals. Cybersecurity is an issue which concerns all of society, particularly as we become ever more dependent on the global information and communications infrastructure.

The International Security Programme at Chatham House is undertaking a range of work which seeks to analyse the key challenges and identify policy responses, particularly for the UK.

Cyberspace and the National Security of the United Kingdom

The political cultural context for countering cyber-threats to the United Kingdom cannot be static and reactive. Instead it must be a dynamic interaction between policy-makers and technologists. Sponsored by Detica, this major new project seeks to engage government, private sector, academic and other specialists in high-level analysis of cybersecurity challenges and responses. It aims to provide a forum for constructive exchange in which the possibilities and limitations of technology can be fully explored, and in which the parameters of public policy-making can be more closely understood by those charged with developing the technological dimensions of security policy.

The project is divided into four modules:

1. Defining the threat: this will identify the central features of the cybersecurity challenge and examine innovative methodologies for threat analysis and response.
2. Policy for the virtual world: this will ask how government should respond to the increasing use of virtual worlds for concrete and often malign purposes.
3. International collaboration: this will assess the scope for enhanced multilateral co-operation to meet international cybersecurity challenges.
4. Privacy, liberty, security and the law: this will examine the means by which an open society can balance the demands for security and surveillance on the one hand, with privacy and civil liberties on the other.

Findings from the first phase of the research, ‘Defining The Threat’, have now been published in a Chatham House Report – Cyberspace and the National Security of the United Kingdom. The report provides a general overview of the problem of cybersecurity and makes the case for a more coherent, comprehensive and anticipatory policy response, both nationally and internationally.

Details of the launch event >>

A roundtable summary from July 2008 is available which provides an overview of the discussion on Terrorism, Radicalisation and the Internet.

Cybersecurity and the European Union

Alongside the work on the implications of cybersecurity issues for the UK, research has included an assessment of the European Union as an international organization with a fragmented yet developing interest in cybersecurity.

The research has included a paper, Cyber Security and Politically, Socially and Religiously Motivated Cyber Attacks, published in February 2009, which was requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and carried out within the framework agreement between ISIS Europe and the European Parliament.

Further Information

For more information please contact Molly Tarhuni.

Chatham House