OFFENSIVE CYBER OPERATIONS, AN ESSENTIAL CAPABILITY OF HYBRID THREATS
OFFENSIVE CYBER OPERATIONS, AN ESSENTIAL CAPABILITY OF HYBRID THREATS

Summary/Abstract: Physical reality is connected to cyber reality, any action in cyberspace ultimately produces a kinetic effect. States have understood this relationship and while the US’s hegemony of physical reality is still difficult to dispute, intense fights are carried out for reaching the leading position in cyberspace thinking that by winning the cyberwar means winning on both realms. In order to cause as much damage as possible, in the context created by the information era in which we find ourselves, state or non-state actors, considered hybrid threats, choose to operate in cyberspace mainly through offensive cyber operations. Offensive cyber operations are unconventional and sometimes asymmetric operations that allow a hybrid threat to operate anonymously, to use forces belonging to proxy actors, to avoid symbolic triggers while producing devastating kinetic effects, without time and space limitations, combined with other unconventional operations such as psychological operations, information or electronic warfare.

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