DEFEN SE A ND CYBERWAR DEFEN SE A ND CYBERWAR
Trust Is the First Casualty Cyberwarriors braced for big, showy attacks that have never come, at least so far. But a quiet subversion of markets and governments has caused plenty of damage.
By Jacquelyn Schneider
W
hen sounding the alarm over cyberthreats, policy makers and analysts have typically employed
a vocabulary of conflict and catastrophe. As early as 2001, James Adams, a co-founder of the cybersecurity firm iDefense, warned that cyberspace was “a new international battlefield,” where future military campaigns would be won or lost. In subsequent years, US defense officials warned of a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” in the words of then–defense secretary Leon Panetta, and a “cyber 9/11,” according to then–homeland
Key points » Focusing too closely on theoretical catastrophes ignores the need for ordinary resilience. » Regaining trust in a digital world depends on restoring confidence in systems of commerce, governance, military power, and international cooperation. » Critical systems must be decentralized and redundant. » Courageous leaders can help people repair the damaged bonds of trust.
Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow and participates in Hoover’s Task Force on National Security. She is a nonresident fellow at the Naval War College’s Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute and a senior policy adviser to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. 124
H O O VER DI GEST • Summer 2022
