Japan’s Emerging Trajectory as a ‘Cyber Power’: From Securitization to Militarization of Cyberspace

Japan has been overlooked as a ‘cyber power’ but it now becoming a serious player in this new strategic domain. Japanese policy-makers have forged a consensus to move cybersecurity to the very core of national security policy, to create more centralized frameworks for cybersecurity, and for Japan’s military institutions to build dynamic cyberdefense capabilities. Japan’s stance has moved rapidly toward the securitization and now militarization of responses to cyber challenges. Japan’s cybersecurity stance has bolstered US–Japan alliance responses to securing all dimensions of the ‘global commons’ and extended its defense perimeter to further deter but potentially raise tensions with China.     

美国网络安全人才培养机制

加强网络安全人才队伍建设已经成为世界主要国家抢占网络空间制高点的战略举措。近年来的研究表明,美国通过发布专门的网络安全人才培养国家战略,设立专门的网络安全人才培养卓越中心,开发专门的网络安全人才培养在线资源,形成了一套较为成熟的惠及全民的网安全人才培养机制。     

A matter of time: On the transitory nature of cyberweapons

This article examines the transitory nature of cyberweapons. Shedding light on this highly understudied facet is important both for grasping how cyberspace affects international security and policymakers’ efforts to make accurate decisions regarding the deployment of cyberweapons. First, laying out the life cycle of a cyberweapon, I argue that these offensive capabilities are both different in ‘degree’ and in ‘kind’ compared with other regarding their temporary ability to cause harm or damage. Second, I develop six propositions which indicate that not only technical features, inherent to the different types of cyber capabilities – that is, the type of exploited vulnerability, access and payload – but also offender and defender characteristics explain differences in transitoriness between cyberweapons. Finally, drawing out the implications, I reveal that the transitory nature of cyberweapons benefits great powers, changes the incentive structure for offensive cyber cooperation and induces a different funding structure for (military) cyber programs compared with conventional weapon programs. I also note that the time-dependent dynamic underlying cyberweapons potentially explains the limited deployment of cyberweapons compared to espionage capabilities.     

军民融合视角下的美国网络安全人才战略

由于网络技术的军民两用特性,军民融合是提升网络空间安全能力的必然选择。而网络空间的竞争,归根结底是人才竞争。网络安全人才战略必须有效应对人才资源整体不足的现实困难,通过合理配置资源和创建创新机制安排,推进军民融合式的网络安全人才体系建设。美国高度重视人才在网络安全战略体系中的关键作用,通过宏观政策引导、创新交流机制、拓宽吸纳渠道等多种方式,为构建军民融合式的网络安全人才战略提供了经验借鉴。     

Interdiction models for delaying adversarial attacks against critical information technology infrastructure

Information technology (IT) infrastructure relies on a globalized supply chain that is vulnerable to numerous risks from adversarial attacks. It is important to protect IT infrastructure from these dynamic, persistent risks by delaying adversarial exploits. In this paper, we propose max‐min interdiction models for critical infrastructure protection that prioritizes cost‐effective security mitigations to maximally delay adversarial attacks. We consider attacks originating from multiple adversaries, each of which aims to find a “critical path” through the attack surface to complete the corresponding attack as soon as possible. Decision‐makers can deploy mitigations to delay attack exploits, however, mitigation effectiveness is sometimes uncertain. We propose a stochastic model variant to address this uncertainty by incorporating random delay times. The proposed models can be reformulated as a nested max‐max problem using dualization. We propose a Lagrangian heuristic approach that decomposes the max‐max problem into a number of smaller subproblems, and updates upper and lower bounds to the original problem via subgradient optimization. We evaluate the perfect information solution value as an alternative method for updating the upper bound. Computational results demonstrate that the Lagrangian heuristic identifies near‐optimal solutions efficiently, which outperforms a general purpose mixed‐integer programming solver on medium and large instances.