Abstract
In the history of warfare, there are a number of examples of strategic uses of asymmetric technologies. Consistent with history and theory, individuals, organizations, and nations have spotted opportunities to employ information and communications technologies to gain and exploit asymmetric advantages and to counter asymmetric weaknesses. This chapter discusses various asymmetries associated with institutions, nations, and organizations that influence the ICT-security nexus. Regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions in a country provide various mechanisms that affect the nature of positive and negative asymmetries. Nations and organizations also differ in terms of their capability to assimilate ICT tools to gain positive asymmetries and deal with vulnerabilities of negative asymmetries.
Criminals, for their part, are motivated by greed. Few leaders of the cyber-organized crime world would hesitate to sell their capabilities to a terrorist loaded with hard currency. That, combined with the ever-growing terrorist awareness of cyber vulnerabilities, makes this set of scenarios not just highly likely, but close to inevitable (Bucci & Steven, 2009).
“If you’re able to take down part of the electrical grid, pretty much everything else fails …. You’re not back in the 1970s; you’re back in the 1870s.” James Woolsey, former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (cf. Maltz, 2009).
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Kshetri, N. (2010). Information and Communications Technologies, Cyberattacks, and Strategic Asymmetry. In: The Global Cybercrime Industry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11522-6_6
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