The war in Ukraine between Russia and the Ukraine has been a hot topic of discussion since it began in 2014. The Aspen Institute recently released an analysis of the successes, failures, and absences of cyberattacks as part of the war. This analysis, titled “The Cyber Defense Assistance Imperative Lessons from Ukraine”, concluded that cyber defense assistance in Ukraine is working and that lessons from the ad-hoc conduct of cyber defense assistance can be institutionalized and scaled to provide new approaches and tools for preventing and managing cyber conflicts in the future.
The analysis also explains why there were not more successful cyberattacks from Russia against Ukraine. Four reasons are that cyberattacks are more effective in the “grey zone” between peace and war, setting up attacks takes time, Putin was concerned about attacks spilling outside the war zone, and Ukrainian defenses were strong due to help from other countries and companies. A fifth reason is that technically successful cyberattacks were kept out of the news and were thus operationally unsuccessful.
In summary, the war in Ukraine has been a lesson in cyber defense assistance. The analysis from the Aspen Institute concluded that cyber defense assistance in Ukraine is working and that lessons can be taken from the ad-hoc conduct of cyber defense assistance to provide new approaches and tools for preventing and managing cyber conflicts in the future. Four reasons were given as to why there were not more successful cyberattacks from Russia against Ukraine, and a fifth reason is that successful cyberattacks were kept out of the news.
Key Points:
• The Aspen Institute recently released an analysis of the successes, failures, and absences of cyberattacks as part of the war in Ukraine.
• The analysis concluded that cyber defense assistance in Ukraine is working and that lessons can be taken to provide new approaches and tools for preventing and managing cyber conflicts in the future.
• Four reasons were given as to why there were not more successful cyberattacks from Russia against Ukraine.
• A fifth reason is that successful cyberattacks were kept out of the news.