
End of June 2022 the ICS team conducted a workshop in cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office on cyber security within the framework of the dialogue processes on the German National Security Strategy. The hybrid event centred on four thematic blocks, each introduced by short keynote speeches followed by discussions, and was held under Chatham…

Vulnerabilities in hardware and software products are a gateway for cyber criminals, and state actors should thus be interested in promoting responsible disclosure and timely remediation. However, intelligence and security agencies also exploit vulnerabilities, sometimes holding vulnerabilities back or even actively seeking to acquire them. Thus, the role of state actors within the global vulnerability…

Mischa Hansel 21 June 2022 Other conflicts may not play-out as the Ukraine war has thus far in cyberspace. Attackers might be better prepared and more ready to use offensive cyber capacities, defenders on the other hand might well have less experience and fewer international allies. In this third part, I want to focus on…

Mischa Hansel 14 June 2022 Describing and understanding the puzzle are of course two different things, let alone deriving policy conclusions. In the second part of this post, I will argue that special, although not necessarily unique, strategic circumstances have contributed to the absence of more serious cyberattacks, particularly against critical infrastructures in the context…

Mischa Hansel 25 May 2022 In the three months since the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous articles on the military and strategic significance of cyber operations have been published. Most – but not all – assume we are faced with major puzzle: how come there have not been any large-scale disruptive cyberattacks against critical infrastructures in Ukraine and…