This contribution discusses the challenges posed by AI-generated deepfakes in elections and the efforts being made to combat them, in particular the need for collective action and collaboration among governments, civil society, and industry to safeguard democracy in the face of rapidly advancing technology. 2024 is an extraordinary year for both democracy and technology. More countries and people will participate …
Striking the Right Balance: How to Publicly Attribute a Cyber Operation to Another State
In recent years, publicly attributing the authorship of malicious cyber operations to another state has become an increasingly popular policy response for many states. Given the political attention these official public political attributions receive, it is vital for states to reasonably explain and justify the reasoning behind particular public attributions. In striking a balance between disclosing and strategically withholding information, …
Advancing European Cyber Resilience and Cyber Defence
Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the attention of European security policymakers has shifted back to conventional defence and warfare. However, it would be short-sighted to ignore the growing peacetime cyber threat and the technological demands of modern warfare, especially in the context of the military use of AI and other emerging technologies with potentially profound …
Countering Cyber Mercenaries
The EU and its member states face a human rights and security crisis due to the use of cyber mercenaries, private entities that sell offensive cyber capabilities to governments. The Paris Peace Forum, the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, and a Franco-British initiative are some of the platforms that have proposed concrete actions and guidance for industry, …
The Global Digital Compact: Progress Towards Digital Cooperation
This article recaps the genesis and evolution of the Global Digital Compact, an ambitious initiative born out of the United Nations’ 75th anniversary declaration. Against the reality of escalating global tensions, the 2020 declaration emphasised the urgency of upholding the organisation’s founding principles. The proposed Compact represents a response to the challenges posed by digital technologies, which both offer immense …
Why EU Cyber Policy Should Become Feminist
The EU’s cyber policy and strategy has developed essential relevance to the EU’s security environment. This was highlighted in 2022’s Strategic Compass, which emphasises the importance of cybersecurity. In the grey zone between peace and armed conflict, state and non-state actors use cyber operations for espionage, ransom or sabotage. The 2022 ENISA Threat Landscape found a massive increase in cyberattacks …
Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure: A Quick Win for Cyber Norms and Software Security
In 2015, UN member states committed themselves to fostering software supply chain security. But the issue has since been neglected in international forums, even as software supply chain compromises have severely impacted individuals, companies and societies. To begin to close this implementation gap, diplomatic action should focus on global promotion of processes of coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD). This would both …
Disruptive Technologies in Security and Defence: Preparing for ‘Known Unknowns’
When it comes to ‘emerging and disruptive technologies’ (EDTs) in security and defence, we can be assured of one certainty, and that is the persistence of an uncomfortably high level of policy and technological uncertainty for the immediate to medium term. Despite slight variation in the definition and common understanding of EDTs, they are generally understood to be particularly disruptive …
China and Russia: A Lasting Partnership in High Technology
Russia is far from China’s most important technological partner. Yet as the outcomes of Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow confirm, Europeans will need to live with a China-Russia partnership that is increasingly focused on high technology. As foreign sanctions drive Russia into rising economic integration with China, and as China’s access to Western markets and partnerships comes under increasing …
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Promotes Cyber Cooperation
The South Korean government announced the Indo-Pacific Strategy of Freedom, Peace and Prosperity in December last year. This strategy pursues economic cooperation and prosperity in infrastructure, trade and supply chains, and focuses on cooperation and solidarity based on openness and inclusion, not competition. It’s encouraging that the strategy directly refers to supporting cyber capabilities, expanding official development assistance (ODA) and …