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A Brief History of Cyberattacks in 2019

The increasing use of cyberattacks in connection with already violent or still non-violent political offline conflicts was demonstrated several times in 2019. In both situations, cyber tools are increasingly seen as a means either to stop the escalation of an analog, still non-violent offline conflict or to try to de-escalate an already violent offline conflict. The sometimes used term ’cyber war’ does not meet the usually applied criteria for the differentiation of ’war’ and ‘peace’: Not a single known cyberattack up to date directly caused the death or injury of human beings. Therefore, this kind of ’restraint’ even by highly sophisticated state actors to fully exploit all their technological potential, serves as the main indicator for the deescalating focus of observed cyberattacks so far.

More external publications

  • Research and Analysis
Hand and Glove: How Authoritarian Cyber Operations Leverage Non-state Capabilities

26 June 2025
In this article, Jakob Bund examines how authoritarian states like Russia, China, and North Korea increasingly harness non-state cyber actors to expand their capabilities, blur attribution, and complicate global responses. He argues that this growing fusion of state and criminal or contractor activity demands integrated threat assessments and response tools that can operate independently of political attribution.

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