Classifying Cyber Events: A Proposed Taxonomy
Abstract:
Immature classification methods for cyber events prevent technical staff, organisational leaders, and policy makers from engaging in meaningful and nuanced conversations about the threats they face. This paper provides a new taxonomy of cyber effects that is used to analyse over 2,431 publicised cyber events from 2014 to 2016. Industry sectors vary in the scale of events they are subjected to, the distribution between exploitive and disruptive event types, and the method by which data is stolen or by which organisational operations are disrupted. These results highlight significant differences by sector and demonstrate that strategies may vary based on deeper understandings of the threat environment.
AUTHORS
School of Public Policy University of Maryland
College Park, MD, United States
Dr. Charles Harry is the Director of Operations at the Maryland Global Initiative in Cybersecurity (MaGIC), an Associate Research Professor in the School of Public Policy, and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). Dr. Harry spent 15 years with the US government working cyber operations and is the recipient of the Director of National Intelligence Extraordinary Achievement Medal and the Signal Intelligence Career Achievement Medal. His current research focuses on the development of an analytic framework for assessing cybersecurity risk, including the ability to categorize and measure the impact of cyber events.
School of Public Policy University of Maryland College Park,
MD, United States
Nancy Gallagher is the director at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and a research professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Her current research includes a book project on Strategic Logics for Arms Control, initiatives to improve cybersecurity decision-making, and cooperative strategies to reduce nuclear risks and enhance space security.
Published In
Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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