Cybersecurity

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost.[1]

Introduction

The concept of hybrid warfare has gained increasing attention in security and military strategy discussions, often focused on examples of Russian operations in the takeover of the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine in 2014. As a full-spectrum approach to understanding offensive operations, ranging from social media campaigns to conventional (kinetic) warfare, the term hybrid warfare can be used to describe a wide variety of activities.

Introduction

Already in our era of “classical computing,” maintaining cybersecurity is an enormous challenge.

Introduction

Nowadays, it is not uncommon for social media to include manifestations of hatred, misleading information, and elements of extremism or terrorism. We already observe that political and religious extremist groups use social media and networks to promote their ideology, recruit new members, demonstrate their power, and shock society with videos of wars as something commonplace and unavoidable. Society is already able to act against such use of social networks and its negative consequences. There are many ways to do so.

Introduction

With the growth of social media, there is a flood of unregulated content available on the Internet. Gone are socially-responsible publishers, editors, and subject matter experts to evaluate information that was available with traditional media.[1] Instead, citizens are left to decide what is fake or real, while maligned actors leverage this opportunity, along with the openness of democracies, to influence societies with disinformation.

Introduction

The use of computers and other digital technology is a daily reality for over half of the global population and substantially more in modern European society. Of the roughly 7.8 billion people inhabiting the planet as of March 2020,[1] an estimated 59 % are internet users and, as of 2019, 49 % of those users have computers in their homes.[2]

Nations need to trust or ban a vendor from building their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and services. In a world where private companies almost exclusively wield both the technical expertise and means to develop, operate, and maintain the ICT structure, nations increasingly depend on the private sector.

A significant milestone in the fight against cybercrime in the Czech Republic is the Government’s approval on July 10, 2017, of the “Concept for the Development of the Cybercrime Investigation Capabilities of the Police of the Czech Republic” (hereinafter the Concept) under number 502.

Global unrest is fast becoming the norm in cyberspace, where cybercriminals operate with relative impunity, and novel technologies allow nation-states to sharpen their practice of influence operations. There is a near-constant rate of hacks against computers – by one recent count every 39 seconds on average for devices connected to the Internet.[1] If cybercrime is not tackled, at risk is nothing less than trust in the government’s ability to deliver on the promise of security.