The Impact of Cyber-Physical Warfare on Global Human Security

Abstract

Cyber is deeply enmeshed and interwoven across national security, as evidenced by its inclusion in the national security policies of a growing number of OECD countries. But it is the impact of cyber across the other components of national and human security that remains to be sufficiently addressed at the national policy level, or in international standards of behavior with respect to cyberwarfare and hybrid conflict. In addition to standing on its own as a national security concern, cybersecurity impacts economic and trade security, ecological/environmental and biosecurity, energy and critical infrastructure security, food security, transportation, and public health, as well as communications, physical and even political security. This work examines the role of threats from cyberwarfare, hybrid conflict, and cyber-physical attacks across human security from a national and global perspective, makes near-term predictions about the future of cyberwarfare, and provides recommendations with respect to preparing for cyberwarfare and ongoing hybrid conflict.