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In the modern era, understanding the costs and implications of conflict extends beyond traditional kinetic boundaries into the cyber realm. While economic analysis has historically been concerned primarily with the state’s ability to sustain and engage in physical warfare, recent research has begun to quantify the additional societal and collateral costs. To shed light on the total costs of the use of cyber weapons and capabilities, we argue that a comprehensive analysis must be done using econometric tools. This paper describes two important tools in this toolkit, counterfactual analysis and bottom-up accounting, in the context of cyber conflict. It discusses how significant collateral costs manifest in the inadvertent aftermath of vulnerability stockpiling for use in cyber weapons, coupled with the losses and thefts of these resources. Such incidents represent not only a direct financial burden but also erode the trust and goodwill of nations who do not disclose the discovered vulnerabilities. Finally, multiple data sources and bottom-up accounting techniques are used to conduct a case study estimating the aggregate societal cost of cyber conflict in the Ukrainian war between late 2013 and 2020. The aggregate cost of the 76 recorded cyberattacks is estimated to be approximately $160M. Finally, counterfactual analysis is concluded to face significant data availability challenges preventing high quality synthesis of the two methods described.

A 'hybrid space architecture' has been proposed to facilitate robust and resilient satellite data downlink, integration and analysis; however, the technical details for what may comprise a hybrid space architecture are severely lacking. Thus far, 'hybrid' principally entails the diversity of commercial providers. While diverse suppliers can contribute to hybrid space architectures, we argue that robustness and resilience will only be achieved through heterogeneous network and asset architectures. A connected satellite services ecosystem composed of the union of different networks with different characteristics would limit single points of failure, thereby generating high levels of redundancy, resilience and scalability. This research outlines parameters of a hybrid space architecture, documents satellite service reference architectures and provides a comparative analysis of the features for each architecture. Further, through a case study of existing satellite service providers, we propose how a hybrid space architecture could be piloted in Northern Europe and the High North.

As the Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) paradigm transforms space infrastructure operations, new attack surface emerges for malicious actors. While the space community generally refers to GSaaS as a singular model, there are several flavors of these systems. After a description of the general GSaaS network's basic structure, this paper presents an analysis of four reference architectures of GSaaS. On the basis of this systems engineering analysis, a cybersecurity analysis of the critical nodes will be carried out through the attack tree method. Later the cybersecurity implication both of technical and strategic characteristic of GSaaS networks will be discussed and put in relation with the current state of space cyberwarfare landscape.

Satellite ground stations in the Arctic and High North are of strategic importance to NATO, given their ability to collect intelligence from space assets in polar Earth orbit. Commercial space infrastructure such as ground systems are increasingly dual-use, employed for both civilian and defense purposes. Their dual-use could cause them to become military targets. As such, commercial operators must strategically consider ground station placement to optimize for utility, while accounting for their security risk. This research presents a frame-work to assess the commercial satellite ground station security landscape by outlining security and performance tradeoffs given geographic location, including proximity to potential adversaries, and designates eight separate risk regions. Particularly, Sweden's and Finland's space infrastructure is of focus given their recent application to join NATO in the wake of Russian aggression. The paper concludes that, to secure ground stations and the assets and services that they enable, a comprehensive risk evaluation including positioning of ground stations is critical.

In this paper we revisit a study presented at MILCOM 2014. Our goal then was to determine the utility of implanting a vulnerability into a cybersecurity software protocol to an actor planning to execute an offensive cyber operation. Based on a case study describing the then recently discovered Heartbleed bug as an offensive cyber operation, a model was devised to estimate the adoption rate of an implanted flaw in OpenSSL. Using the adoption rate of the cryptographic protocol Transport Layer Security version 1.2 as a proxy, we predicted that the global adoption of the vulnerability of at least 50% would take approximately three years, while surpassing 75% adoption would take four years. Compared to subsequently collected real-world data, these forecasts turned out to be surprisingly accurate. An evaluation of our proposed model shows that it yields results with a root-mean-square error of only 1.2% over the forecasting period. Thus, it has a significant degree of predictive power. Although the model may not be generalizable to describe the adoption of any software protocol, the finding helps validate our previously drawn conclusion that exploiting implanted cyber vulnerabilities, in a scenario like the one presented, requires a planning horizon of multiple years. However, as society becomes further dependent on the cyber domain, the utility of intentional vulnerability implantation is likely an exercise in diminishing returns. For a defender, however, our model development process could be useful to forecast the time required for flawed protocols to be phased out.

The people responsible for building the IT products and infrastructure of tomorrow – today’s students of the computing disciplines – oftentimes do not have the opportunity or proper motivation to develop cybersecurity skills meeting the needs of the job market. This paper introduces High Fidelity Live eXercises (HiFLiX) a teaching/learning activity designed to expose students to cybersecurity challenges resembling those they could face in a future work environment. We describe a HiFLiX prototype study, conducted as a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s CyberSecurity@CSAIL research group and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Our analysis indicates that the proposed delivery method met the stipulated cybersecurity educational outcomes and increased the motivation for future cybersecurity studies in the majority of participants. Two previously unknown software flaws were also discovered.

Enterprise architecture (EA) has been established as a discipline to cope with the complex interactions of business operations and technology. Models, i.e., formal descriptions in terms of diagrams and views, are at the heart of the approach. Though it is widely thought that such architecture models can contribute to improved understanding and decision making, this proposition has not rigorously been tested. This article describes an experiment conducted with a real EA model and corresponding real traditional documents, investigating whether the model or the documents lead to better and faster understanding. Understanding is interesting to study, as it is a prerequisite to other EA uses. The subjects (N = 98) were officer cadets, and the experiment was carried out using a comprehensive description of military Close Air Support capability either (1) in the form of a MODAF model or (2) in the form of traditional documents. Based on the results, the model seems to lead to better, though not faster, understanding.

Two technology forecast reports from the Fraunhofer Institute, three reports from the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI) and two publications from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been reviewed by staff at the Military-Technology Division at the Swedish Defence University (SEDU). The task given by the Defence Material Administration (FMV) was to assess the military utility of the given technologies in a time frame to up 2040, from a Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) perspective.

In the review we assessed the military utility of certain technologies as possible contributions to the operational capabilities of the SwAF, based on identified and relevant scenarios. Because a new capability catalogue is under development at the SwAF Headquarters, this report only presents general assessments of the capability impact of the technologies studied.

The technologies were grouped into four classes: potentially significant, moderate, negligible, or uncertain military utility.

The classification uncertain military utility was given to technologies that are difficult to put in the other three classes, it was not because the technology readiness level (TRL) will not bereached by 2040.

The following technologies were assessed to have the potential for significant military utility:

- Nanocarbons for photonic applications

The following technologies were assessed to have a potential for moderate military utility;

- Internet of things (IoT)

- Materials and technologies for protection against chemical agents

The following technologies were assessed to have uncertain military utility;

- Post-quantum cryptography

- New applications for hyperspectral image analysis for chemical and biological agents

No technology was found to have negligible military utility.

The method used in this technology forecast report was to assign each report to one reviewer in the working group. Firstly, each forecast report was summarized. The Fraunhofer assessment of technical readiness level (TRL) in the time period was held to be correct. Each technology was then put into one or more scenarios that were assessed to be suitable for assessing the military utility as well as indicating any possibilities and drawbacks. Based on a SWOTanalysis, the assessed contributions to the fundamental capabilities, and to the factors DOTMPLFI (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities and Interoperability), were listed. Furthermore, the expected SwAF R&D requirements, to facilitate the introduction of the technology are given. The Military utility was assessed using a model developed by the Military-Technology Division. Finally, conclusions and an overall rating of the potential military utility of each technology were presented.

The chosen definition of military utility clearly affects the result of the study. The definition used here (“the military utility of a certain technology is its contribution to the operational capabilities of the SwAF, within identified relevant scenarios”) has been used in our Technology Forecasts since 2013.

Our evaluation of the method used shows that there is a risk that assessments can be biased by the participating experts’ presumptions and experience from their own field of research. It should also be stressed that the seven technologies’ potential military utility was assessed within the specific presented scenarios and their possible contribution to operational capabilities within those specific scenarios, not in general. When additional results have been found in the analysis, this is mentioned.

The greatest value of the method used is its simplicity, cost effectiveness and that it promotes learning within the working group. The composition of the working group and the methodology used are believed to provide a broad and balanced coverage of the technologies being studied. This report should be seen as an executive summary of the research reports and the intention is to help the SwAF Headquarters to evaluate the military utility of emerging technologies within identified relevant scenarios.

Overall, the research reports are considered to be balanced and of high quality in terms of their level of critical analysis regarding technology development. These reports are in line with our task to evaluate the military utility of the emerging technologies.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the de facto standard for secure end-to-end web communication. However, numerous flaws discovered during recent years, such as Apple’s “goto fail” bug, and cryptographic weaknesses as illustrated by the Poodlebleed vulnerability, have brought the efficiency of the mostly self-regulated web security market into question. In this cross-disciplinary paper, the authors survey some 160.000 HTTPS-enabled servers among popular web sites over a time period of three years. The research question is what effect the introduction of best practices and vulnerability publication have on web server security in the form of protocol support. Main findings include that (i) insecure configurations, although well known, can remain widespread for over a decade, (ii) the introduction of best practices affect the decline of insecure configurations only moderately, whereas highly publicized security flaws have a significant impact, and (iii) economic incentives for website owners to provide secure services are weak, motivating such other levers of influence as legislation or blocking of noncompliant sites.