Cyber Defence is More Than Just Cybersecurity

• Published in: European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security pp. 436 - 444
• Main Author: Mattila, Juha Kai
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Reading Academic Conferences International Limited 01.06.2025
• Subjects: Access control; Collaboration; Competition; Cybersecurity; Defense; Design; Design standards; Information warfare; National security; United States > US; China; Ukraine; Russia

Power projection through the cyber environment has become customary in competition, confrontation, and conflict between states. Cyber exploitation is supporting Iranian information warfare against its neighbours and the US. Russia is attacking Ukraine's cyber environment as part of its information and physical operations. The US and China wield cyber means as part of their strategic competition. Information security and cybersecurity, as part of it, focus on technical and procedural areas of cyber defence but miss the tactical, operational, and strategic levels required for national defence. Cybersecurity experts may recognise the technical and strategic layers of Cyber Defence. On the other hand, military officers approach warfare with three layers: tactical, operational, and strategic. These two world views seldom meet to generate and operate Cyber Defence. Therefore, this paper designs a model for Cyber Defence, bringing together information security and military experts from the strategic down to the technical level for capability generation and cyber force projection. The research approaches the topic from a relativist viewpoint, understanding the boundaries of Western cultural thinking and recognising the interplay between subject and object and between the nodes of the sociotechnical system. The research uses the standard research process of design sciences. The cyber defence model is built based on information and cybersecurity practices at a technical level, and on top of those, military tactical, operational, and strategic practices are applied. Selected use cases test the integrated model at each level. The paper tests the feasibility of the Cyber Defence Model with three scenarios, and the results show that the model addresses the essential tenets in tactical, operational, and strategic cases. The model recognises the different nature of the cyber environment compared to traditional domains, illustrates a collaboration model between layers of warfare, and emphasises the different nature of functions at each layer. The model and findings of the research may support establishing collaboration between stakeholders in creating national defence and military strategies, building cyber defence doctrines, and training cyber defence for planners and executors of operations and missions.