Nation States, Cyberconflict and the Web of Profit

FOREWORD FROM IAN PRATT,
Global Head of Security for Personal Systems, HP Inc.

The world of Nation State cyberconflict and cyberespionage is covert by nature. Finding evidence of how such players operate, what tools they use, what motivates them and how they gain supremacy has always been challenging. Therefore, we are excited to share this study from Dr. Michael McGuire, Senior Lecturer of Criminology at the University of Surrey in the UK, which shines a light into how the Nation State cybersphere is evolving.

Over the past year, Nation States have become increasingly bold in their use of cyber capabilities to bolster sovereign interests – for example, the recent SolarWinds supply chain attack is widely considered to be the most sophisticated Nation State attack since Stuxnet. There have also been several brazen attempts to steal intellectual property around Covid-19 vaccine development. This has brought the issue of Nation State interference out of the shadows and into the limelight, making this report even more timely.

As Dr. McGuire’s study shows, this escalation in tensions could have easily been foretold. There has been a steady upwards trajectory in the severity, openness and variety of Nation State cyber activities over the past twenty years. This has been driven, in part, by the widening use of cyber to support traditional military and intelligence goals – including surveillance, espionage, disruption and destruction. Worryingly, the report also highlights that the cyber and physical worlds are now colliding with potentially disastrous consequences, through cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.

The intersection between Nation States and the cybercrime economy – also known as ‘The Web of Profit’ – is a particularly interesting development. Nation States are knowingly engaging with this Web of Profit – buying and trading in tools, data, services, and talent – to further their strategic interests or ‘keep their hands clean’ of misdeeds by using proxies for cyberattacks. Equally, tools developed by Nation States are also making their way onto the cyber black market – tools like EternalBlue, the notorious exploit that was used by the WannaCry hackers in 2017.