Violence and War in Culture and the Media

14   Blame it on the Russians

Tracking the portrayal of Russian hackers during cyber conflict incidents¹

Athina Karatzogianni

Introduction

This chapter tracks the portrayal of Russian hackers in relation to various cyber conflicts and cyber crime incidents. It employs cyber conflict theory (Karatzogianni 2006, 2009a, 2009b, 2010), in order to engage with various aspects of cyber conflicts implicating Russian hackers, such as the cyber conflicts involving Estonia and Georgia. Further, its purpose is to identify and analyse the continuities in the coverage of Russian hackers, and links made in the global media between intelligence, cyber espionage, cyber crime and patriotic hacking, which, eventually and inevitably, also implicated Russian hackers ...