Cyber Project

The Cyber Project investigates how developments in the field of cybersecurity will shape international conflict.

Principal Investigator:

Eric Rosenbach

Executive Director:

Lauren Zabierek

The pandemic didn’t slow the Cyber Project down this year—in fact, with the revelation of major cyberattacks and the significant rise of ransomware, the Project kept pace with its analysis and contributions to the field.

The Project maintained and grew its stellar (and diverse) cohort of non-resident fellows with the addition of former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs as a joint Homeland Security and Cyber Project Senior Fellow. These fellows have contributed to the conversation on many issues in cybersecurity and emerging tech. Fellows Rob Knake and Tarah Wheeler (with student Victoria Ontiveros) held workshops and published the highly-anticipated Learning from Cyber Incidents: Adapting Aviation Safety Models to Cybersecurity. Julia Voo and Anina Schwarzenbach continue to update the 2020 National Cyber Power Index with new datasets; Selena Larson and Lauren Zabierek published a paper calling for cybersecurity regulations for the Water and Wastewater sector. Camille Stewart and Lauren Zabierek held two #ShareTheMicInCyber campaigns. In March, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood provided opening remarks and in October, CISA Director Jen Easterly and NSA Cyber Director Rob Joyce participated as allies. These campaigns reached over 50 million people on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Despite being remote, the students who worked with the Cyber Project last year did incredible work. Michaela Lee, who published a Belfer Center paper exploring quantum computing and cybersecurity interned with CISA this summer. Madi Murariu published her paper on data transfer frameworks between the U.S. and the EU, and Emily Wu published her paper on data localization and sovereignty. Felipe Bueno, Graham Kennis, and Ngasuma Kanyeka contributed greatly to and co-authored our seminal report, Toward a More Collaborative Defensive and Enhanced Threat Intelligence Posture. Finally, Christie Lawrence, Miles Neumann, and Lauren Zabierek co-authored the Russia Matters-sponsored paper, U.S.-Russian Contention in Cyberspace: Are Rules of the Road Necessary or Possible? Together with Russian co-author, Pavel Sharikov, the paper explored the issue from American and Russian perspectives. Finally, students Michael McGetrick and Usha Sahay together with James Shires researched and co-authored the paper, Rational Not Reactive: Re-evaluating Expectations of Iranian Cyber Strategy Beyond “Tit-for-Tat” based on a grant from the Middle East Initiative.

The Project published several op-eds, making the case that grassroots organizations can operationalize the White House vision on public-private partnerships (with fellow Camille Stewart); asking what happens after norms (with student Christie Lawrence); and exploring why are we so vulnerable in cyberspace after major ransomware attacks on our critical infrastructure. We held several virtual events this year, including a discussion of the Geneva Convention in cyberspace, how three major organizations secure America, and insights and implications for ransomware.

The Cyber Project is excited about the work it’s planning to do over the next year. It is jointly conducting research and analysis with the Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats Team at the R Street Institute, to identify bipartisan, external consensus on the issues that are currently preventing the passage of federal legislation. Lauren Zabierek is also co-leading the international engagement in supply chain security line of effort with Josh Meltzer of the Brookings Institution in the larger Secure and Competitive Markets Initiative.