Rebalancing cybersecurity imperatives: patching the social layer

ABSTRACT

The social layer, where civil society, including commercial and academic interaction, takes place is the most vulnerable one of the three commonly accepted layers of cyberspace. Worse still, emphasis by technical experts on physical and logical layer security has lulled civil society into a dangerous torpor that conflates information transmission reliability with reliable information. This has been exploited by criminals, adversarial states such as Russia and hostile non-state actors such as the Islamic State. This article explores the danger of an overly narrow conception of cybersecurity by governments and practitioners and recommends an urgent focus on the social layer toward a holistic rebalancing of cybersecurity. It offers a set of recommendations to help civil society secure itself in cyberspace.

KEYWORDS:

• Cybersecurity
• propaganda
• resilience
• networks
• cyberspace
• disinformation

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Erick Waage and Donna Artusy for invaluable research support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David V. Gioe is History Fellow at the Army Cyber Institute at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he also serves as Assistant Professor of History. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and an MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He is a former CIA operations officer and Naval Intelligence veteran. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the US Military Academy, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

Michael S. Goodman is Professor of Intelligence and International Affairs in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is also a visiting professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School and is the Official Historian of the British Joint Intelligence Committee. With David V. Gioe, he convenes the Cambridge Security Initiative’s International Security and Intelligence programme.

Alicia Wanless is a PhD researcher at King’s College London exploring alternative frameworks for understanding the information environment. With more than a decade of experience in research and analysis, Alicia conducts content and network analysis, and has developed original models for identifying and analysing digital propaganda campaigns.

ORCID

David V. Gioe http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-999X

Michael S. Goodman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6093-7343

Alicia Wanless http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3032-8229