8 Cybersecurity and International Complexities

This chapter presents several somewhat countervailing perspectives on threats to cybersecurity—modes, mechanisms, and manifestations. The first is a brief note on perennial predicaments in the cyber domain, some "state-of-the-art" views. The second is a look at well-known modes of cyber threat. The third focuses on seventeen cases of cyber conflicts for insights these might yield. We ask: what systematic inferences, if any, can be drawn from a set of cases reported in narrative form? Without foreshadowing the nature of the evidence or the reliability of prevailing assessments, we then turn to the fourth perspective and ask: what is the international community doing, if anything, in response to contentions the cyber domain? Invariably, in each of these lines of inquiry we are constrained by the nature of the evidence, the type of methods used, the diversity of damage—to note only a few of the most salient factors. Our purpose overall is to signal, "reader, beware, uncertainties abound."