Cybersecurity in Humanities and Social Sciences

4Researching State-sponsored Cyber-espionage

4.1. Defining cybersecurity and cyber-espionage

Cybersecurity is the product of a triangular interaction between computer science, information security and mathematics, with the latter being arguably at the helm. Over time, the interdisciplinary landscape of cybersecurity has been broadened with additions from research in political science, military science, sociology and psychology. In its current state, the term cybersecurity refers to an array of principles, technologies, processes and practices that aim to prevent unauthorized access to, or the unwanted manipulation and destruction of, cyber-systems and their data. Cybersecurity concentrates solely on safeguarding digital – rather than physical or analog – systems. It is therefore different from information security, which makes no distinction between digital and analog systems. Cybersecurity also differs from computer security, because it concentrates not only on computer devices or networks but also on the much broader realm of cyberspace.

The term cyberspace is used here to denote the convergence of networked computer hardware, the digital data it relies on and generates, and the machines or humans that manage or use them. To understand the term cyberspace in context, it helps to consider the example of Stuxnet, the malicious computer worm that was discovered in 2010. Stuxnet is believed to have been designed to sabotage the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran. ...