Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

The Swedish Armed Forces have declared that by the year 2023, the Swedish Armed Forces C2-systems are to be fully FMN compliant. This thesis is to answer what initially needs to change in the C4ISR to enable them to achieve FMN compatibility.

The current FMN Spiral specification provides, in principle, only support for the essential human-to-human communication services. With this, the SA, JISR and MEDEVAC Mission Thread are to be conducted.

The Swedish Armed Forces is clear about the importance of interoperability in order to act together with others, both within and outside its region. But it is less clear which of the Swedish Armed Forces C2-system that is affected by FMN.

This thesis has come to the conclusion that SWECCIS probably is the C4ISR that best represents what FMN is trying to achieve today, and that SWECCIS basically is FMN compliant. SWECCIS provides, however, only four of the six human-to-human communications services, and the Swedish Armed Forces' current solution to provide audio-based collaboration services is not FMN compliant.

The future FMN Spiral specifications will place more demands on the Swedish Armed Forces C4ISR for those to maintain their FMN compliant.

The aim of this article is to present how Chinese strategies are manifested into offensive cyberspace operations targeting Sweden. It is commonly known that People’s Republic of China (PRC, and in this definition the meaning of thegovernment and its military), uses five-year plans (FYP) for social and economic steering strategy of their country. This has been going on since 1953 until today. In 2015, the national strategic plan Made in China 2025 (中国制造2025) was launched by Le Keqiang, the Premier of the State Council of PRC. The main goal with this plan is to strengthen the economic development. In addition, Chinese military strategists noted the importance of information warfare and intelligence during military operations. This article is based on open sources: the official English translated version of the 13th Five-year plan (FYP) and other reporting on cyberspace operations linked to the PRC. A number of cases are presented to highlight the link between the PRC FYP and their targets. Next, the current situation in Sweden is presented and how the country is targeted by PRC-linked activities, both in and through cyberspace, but also military infiltration on academia. The results show that Sweden has been, and is continuously the target of offensive cyberspace operations. In parallel, the country is also the target of military infiltration on the academia, and direct investment strategies such as Huawei attempting to compete for the 5G frequency actions arranged by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. In conclusion, Sweden will continue to experience cyberespionage from PRC on all levels and on all domains; science, technology, IP and privacy information theft. Previously unveiled cyberspace operations cases in this article have proven to be a convenient strategy for the PRC to reduce its research and development gap in several ways; innovatively, financially and to shortening the time-to-market (TTM).

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.

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.

Changing climate have a great impact on northern area of Pakistan’s environment and is more prone to environmental changes impacts than rest of the country due to its high elevation. However, the results of melting glaciers effect not only the local environment but also the whole country with frequent and heavy floods. Although recent technological development provided solutions of many problems to mankind, the pace of development in the field of environmental preservation technologies are much slower than needed.

Remote sensing (RS) from Satellites and Airplanes used in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are technologies that can aid in understanding the ongoing environmental processes as it enable us to obtain information about vast area and help researchers to observe, understand, forecast and suggest response to changes that occur.

It can be natural disasters or man-made disasters and human induced factors. Still analysis accuracy issues are there which plays a vital role for the formulation of any strategy. To achieve better results, object based analysis methods have been tested in here. Various algorithms are developed by the analysts to calculate the magnitude of land cover changes but must be evaluated for each environment that is under observation as for example mountainous areas. Here we have tried object-based methods in comparison with pixel based. Landslides, soil moisture, soil permeability, snow cover and vegetation cover that change during certain period of time can, with those methods, be effectively monitored. The findings were in short;

1) Object based analysis shows better accuracy ratio as compared to the pixel based analysis.

2) Slow but gradual depletion of snow/ice cover was confirmed in the study area of Karakoram region, Northern Pakistan.

3) Snow and ice melting catalyses the floods, mudslides, landslides and lake outburst episodes in the area during last two decades could be clearly observed in the analysed images and survey data.

4) Massive landslide/mudslide phenomena was observed in the study area in 2010 and 2012 in Landsat imagery. The artificial lake on the River Hunza was clearly observable in TM and ETM 2010, 2011 and 2012 imagery.

5) Bare soil area increased due to glacial retreat therefore gradual increase in the vegetation can be observed from the year 1992 to 2011.

Present--‐day warfare often involves planning and execution of operations in complex environments. In order to support military decision making in such environments I argue that the military situation must be represented by six categories of representations. In current practice only two categories are employed. The six categories should be linked to representations of the operational plan and the planning process. By combining the different categories of representations, military decision makers will gain a better understanding of operational areas that hold complex system behaviour.

For applications where general-purpose communication systems, such as mobile telephony, do not satisfy user requirements, special-purpose digital wireless communication standards have been developed. Since these systems often support critical infrastructures, security issues can have far-reaching consequences. To study the extent of research on security issues in specialized communication standards, a systematic literature review was performed, using snowballing to maximize coverage. The found publications cover security issues in radio communication systems for three major areas: civil transportation, public safety and security, and telephony and satellite communication systems. The main results from the included publications are summarized. This is followed by an analysis that presents five common themes among the security issues: lack of encryption, lack of authentication, broken encryption, protocol vulnerabilities, and implementation vulnerabilities. Research tools and methods used across the different technology fields are systematized, showing that software-defined radio and open-source software appear to be enablers of research on the communication standards covered by the review. The systematization also reveals that the application of research methods to different standards is spotty. Finally, numerous open research directions are pointed out, including the need for more holistic research that goes beyond just finding technical flaws in single standards.

This paper explores certain issues concerning the Turing test; non-termination, asymmetry and the need for a control experiment. A standard diagonalisation argument to show the non-computability of AI is extended to yields a socalled “April fool Turing test”, which bears some relationship to Wizard of Oz experiments and involves placing several experimental participants in a symmetrical paradox – the “April Fool Turing Test”. The fundamental question which is asked is whether escaping from this paradox is a sign of intelligence. An important ethical consideration with such an experiment is that in order to place humans in such a paradox it is necessary to fool them. Results from an actual April Fool Turing Test experiment are reported. It is concluded that the results clearly illustrate some of the difficulties and paradoxes which surround the classical Turing Test.

Games are rule-governed systems at the same time as they are fiction, simulating or representing a real or an abstract world. This defining characteristic may create for different forms of tensions, that is, at different times players may focus on the rules, the fiction or on both during game play. In military education with games, this poses a problem when the learner becomes too focused on the rules, trying to win at any price rather than taking the representation and what it implies in terms of permissible behaviour seriously. In here we attempt to understand how participants in a wargaming situation act out this tension by studying the interaction between the player and the game in military tactical training.

The results first of all confirm that there is a tension – there are occasions where players are mainly concerned with winning the wargame, disregarding what the theme is meant to represent. I propose the term gamer mode to refer to this player orientation: players in gamer mode have an extreme rule-focused interaction, meaning they behave rationally with respect to game rules but irrationally with respect to the portrayed real-life situation they are training for. Gamer mode can probably occur for many reasons. This thesis documents two contributing factors. The first concerns whenever the game does not match players’ expectation on mimicking warfare. In these situations players may find that the game breaks the fragile contract of upholding an accurate representation of warfare. The other factor that may lead to gamer mode are game design features such as explicit reward structures or victory conditions.

To remedy the situation, the instructor can, in real-time, actively support players’ orientation towards the game and explain in-game events, keeping them on track. When gamer mode occur I argue that the conditions for learning are compromised as the gaming activity becomes its own learning subject, blurring and overshadowing the learning objective. Although the results suggest that gamer mode is mainly detrimental to learning I conclude that gamer mode is a natural way students will approach games and as such, needs to be dealt with by the instructor.

A risk associated with the use of games in training and education is that players "game the game," instead of focusing on their learning goals. The term gamer mode is proposed to describe this attitude. A player with a gamer-mode attitude strives to achieve goals that are optimal for winning the game, but suboptimal with respect to educational objectives. In this study of cadets playing an educational wargame to learn ground warfare tactics, the author examined occurrences of gamer mode. The results show that gamer mode on and off emerged in all analyzed sessions. Cadets understanding of the wargame was different from what the instructors expected. This study discusses why it is important to avoid situations where the gamer mode emerges and also speculates on the sources that generate this attitude-the game itself, the educational setting, and the participants' previous experiences.

The instructor has a vital role in leading the debriefing discussion in game-based learning. The role during the gaming part is however not as clear. Some results suggest that the instructor should take an active and authoritative role, but results provide few clues on how to apply this to military wargaming. Wargaming is a two-sided game activity where both sides are assumed to learn from their play experience. Wargaming against a live opponent can however produce unwanted effects. One such effect is ‘gamer mode’ that is a result of an exaggerated willingness to win, which can be observed when the players, for instance, exploit the game rules in unrealistic manner. This paper investigates the main responsibilities or duties of the instructor to prevent gamer mode to occur and instead support the desired player-orientation toward the game. By reasoning on the main characteristic features of wargaming, to play the game and to learn from the experience, I conclude that the main duties of the instructor are to frame the game activity and to steer the learning process. This supports earlier results that the instructor should take an active part in the gaming process, yet needs to have the skills, knowledge, and authority to intervene in students’ game play. The findings are illustrated with excerpts from videotaped wargaming sessions at the Swedish National Defence College.

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.

In 2014 the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) spent almost SEK 20 million on the procurement of satellite capacity for use during training, exercises and operations. However, according to SwAF Headquarters, the capacity procured did not meet unit demands.

The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the capacity usage in an operational headquarters, based on the headquarters’ staff procedures and to see if there is any military utility to be gained in connection with this capacity.

The starting point for the study is quantitative data about network usage. This quantitative data is then compared with staff work based on quantitative and qualitative data from war diaries, governing documentation and studies.

The study shows that capacity usage is not related to staff work, but is instead linked to the presence of staff and their use of the Internet. The study also indicates that there could be potential for greater military utility of network capacity, but this will require the introduction of network priority mechanisms and further studies into user traffic.

This report is one of the first to examine how system methodology can be applied as a tool to facilitate a holistic view of fighter aircraft survivability. This is done through the application of a modified version of multi-agent influence diagrams (MAIDs), as an analytical tool of two generic one-on-one scenarios based on Robert E. Balls The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability, Analysis and Design. The concept of survivability has been limited to susceptibility because this is where ECM, ECCM and ESM operate.

The result: three influence diagrams for each scenario and a generic MAID developed for the first scenario. These should not be seen as an exact technical description of the interaction between threats and countermeasures, but as a pilot application of system methodology within the study area. Furthermore, the user validation indicates that the diagrams can convey the complexity of the interactions between threats and countermeasures through a graphical presentation. The diagrams led to a deeper discussion about which influences are important for survival.

The conclusion is that MAID and systems methodology can serve as a tool to describe and help communicate the complex relationships between elements and influences that affect the aircraft's survivability between different actors, provided they are modelled correctly.

Cyber-attacks have increased since the 1988-Morris worm and can target any connected device from any place in the world. In 2010, Stuxnet received a lot of attention as the first cyber-weapon. Its targets were the Iranian nuclear enrichment centrifuges. Nation states are developing cyberspace capabilities to conduct offensive cyberspace operations. Academic researchers have been calling for a more transparent discussion on offensive capabilities and have pointed out the positive impact researchers had during the development of nuclear capabilities. Shrouded in secrecy, the development of offensive capabilities used for operations makes it difficult to conduct research. Therefore, one way to mitigate this is to conduct a systematic review of the current state of research in offensive cyberspace operations. The systematic review method makes it possible to establish certain inclusion and exclusion criteria and systematically go through academic articles to identify the contents, thoughts and research focus of academic researchers. Six scientific databases were queried and 87 articles were read and clustered. The first insight is that, based on the results of the queried databases, research about offensive cyberspace operations is limited. The resulting clusters are a general cluster about cyberspace operations, followed by research in policy, decision-making, governance, capabilities, levels, models, training, deterrence and international affairs. These are then further grouped into: a) general cyberspace operations; b) deterrence; c) international affairs; d) modelling, simulation and training. The article concludes that research into offensive cyberspace operations is maturing as more information is becoming public. Secondly, current research lists some good basic ideas regarding effects which can be achieved through offensive cyberspace operations, how they should be conducted, and related tools, techniques and procedures. However, discrepancies in research efforts exist, with the majority of research coming primarily from the western world. In addition, secrecy and the resulting limited access to information, coupled with research being either too technically focused or too qualitatively focused, show that there still remains room for research in this field. Finally, some directions for future research are examined.

This article reviews the question what is a substantial contribution to a research project in offensive cyberspace operations that merits co-authorship? Frustrations and conflicts may develop during research projects when researchers with different backgrounds, cultures, research fields and expertise decide to conduct research and produce and publish those results. The focus of this paper is a research project in cyberspace operations while taking into account the power-dynamics inherent in the academic system and how these can affect the co-authorship of research products. First, the purpose with doing research is presented. Next, three models of the research process are reviewed, describing their differences and similarities. Then, linguistic analysis is applied on a set of terms in guidelines for co-authorship described in some different universities in Sweden. The results present a model for a research project in offensive cyberspace operations and based on the output of the linguistic analysis, the model is used to quantify and describe what a substantial contribution is in three scenarios that merits co-authorship. 

This article addresses the rise in state-sponsored cyber attacks over the past three decades and proposes a new ambidextrous framework for offensive cyberspace operations. Since 1982, nation states have embarked in a fierce race to develop both clandestine and covert offensive cyber capabilities. Their intended targets range from foreign militaries and terrorist organizations to civilian populations and the critical infrastructures that they rely upon. Advancements in cyber security have, however, contributed to the discovery and attribution of offensive cyber operations, such as state-sponsored ransomware attacks, where state-built cyber capabilities have been used to attack governments, industries, academia and citizens of adversary nations. The financial and psychological costs of these ransomware attacks are today a threat to any state’s national security. This article draws from academic research, the cyber military doctrines of four countries—a total of eight models from the Netherlands, Sweden, the U.S., and the U.K.—and the authors’ operational experience to propose a new ambidextrous framework for offensive cyberspace operations. This ambidextrous framework for offensive cyberspace operations and the associated Cyberspace Operations Canvas are needed today in order to increase the resilience of national critical infrastructures against attacks from state-developed tools. We use the WannaCry-case to illustrate how the implementation of the ambidextrous framework for offensive cyberspace operations would result in increased awareness and understanding of the prospective cyber threats, their intended target(s), the likelihood of cascading effects and the options available by nation states to minimize them.

This article addresses the question ‘what considerations should be taken by cyber commands when designing attack infrastructure for offensive operations?’. Nation-states are investing in equipping units tasked to conduct offensive cyberspace operations. Generating ‘deny, degrade, disrupt, destroy or deceive’ effects on adversary targets requires to move from own (‘green’), through neutral (‘grey’), to adversary (‘red’) cyberspace. The movement is supported by attack infrastructure for offensive cyberspace operations. In this paper, we review the professional and scientific literature identifying the requirements for designing an attack infrastructure. Next, we develop and define the concepts for attack infrastructure. Finally, we explain and describe the considerations for designing attack infrastructure. The research question is answered by proposing a framework for designing attack infrastructure. This framework is vital for military and civilian commands designing attack infrastructure for offensive cyberspace operations. 

Cyber deterrence is a strategy to deter attackers from conducting cyber-attacks in the first place. However, several issues exist when implementing cyber deterrence, which are identified in this paper. The findings show (1) non-existence of the deterrence strategy  (2) no doctrine or decision competence to retaliate to an adversary, (3) the armed forces have no authority to retaliate when Swedish sovereignty in Cyberspace is threatened, (4) no norms or regulations exist concerning retaliation, (5) no clear governance on using offensive cyber capabilities, and finally, (6) no credibility in its cyber deterrence posture regarding how much Sweden is willing to sacrifice to protect its electoral system, which is a Swedish national interest. Therefore, this research investigates how cyber deterrence can practically be implemented in Swedish cyber security policy. So far, researchers generally focused on the human aspect of cyber deterrence. By using the case study research strategy and utilizing the Swedish electoral system as a case, this paper examines possibilities to merge the human dimensions of cyber security with the technological dimensions. Data collection is performed through documents studies and semi-structured interviews with experts in the area to identify cyber deterrence components. Further, a mathematical approach is discussed in the paper to express the relationship between an adversary and a deterrent depicting each of the actor’s risk calculus. A result of the research work performed in this paper, the deterrence components for Swedish cyber deterrence are proposed and risk calculus is performed. Moreover, measures to increase Swedish cyber deterrence posture are proposed the practical implementation of cyber deterrence in Swedish cyber security policy in order to deter attacks on the Swedish electoral system is demonstrated.

This article addresses the question under which circumstances zero-day vulnerabilities should be disclosed or used for offensive cyberspace operations. Vulnerabilities exist in hardware and software and can be seen as a consequence of programming errors or design flaws. The most highly sought are so-called zero-day-vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities exist but are unknown and, when exploited, enable one way of entry into a system that is otherwise not thought possible. Therefore, from an anticipatory ethics perspective, it is important to understand in what cases zero-days should be disclosed or not.

This article presents the ethical issues using offensive cyberspace operations. Previously enshrouded in secrecy, and now becoming the new norm, countries are using them to achieve their strategic interests. Russia has conducted offensive operations targeting Estonia, Georgia and the Ukraine; Hamas was targeting Israeli targets; and Iran has been targeting U.S. targets. The response has varied; Estonia and Georgia struggled with the attacks and were unable to respond while Ukraine tried to respond but it was inefficient. Israel’s response on Hamas offensive operations was an air strike on a building with Hamas Cyber-operatives. Iran shot down a U.S. Drone over the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. initially intended to respond with kinetic capabilities in the form of missile strikes. However, in the last minute, the U.S. chose to respond with offensive cyberspace operations targeting the Iranian missile systems. This last-minute change of response choosing between kinetic or cyber capabilities shows a need to further investigate how offensive cyberspace operations can be used against which targets from an ethical perspective. This article applies anticipatory ethical analysis on U.S. offensive operations in the “Global Hawk”-case when Iran shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Anticipatory ethical analysis looks at emerging technologies and their potential consequences. Offensive cyberspace operations present a range of possibilities, which include lowering the risk of harm to cyber operatives’ lives belonging to the responding nation. However, a response can also be kinetic. Therefore, the analysis of the “Global Hawk”-case is compared with the Israeli-air strike of the building of Hamas Cyber-operatives. The authors argue that applying anticipatory ethical analysis on offensive operations and kinetic operations assist decision makers in choosing response actions to re-establish deterrence.

This article presents the ethical dilemma related to under what circumstances vulnerabilities should be disclosed. Vulnerabilities exist in hardware and software, and can be as a consequence of programming errors or design flaws. Threat actors can exploit these vulnerabilities to gain otherwise unintended access to information systems, resources and/or stored information. In other words, they can be used to impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information in information systems. As a result, various types of vulnerabilities are highly sought after since they enable this type of access. The most highly sought are so-called “zero-day”-vulnerabilities. These are vulnerabilities that exist but are unknown, and when exploited, enable one way of entry into a system that is not thought possible. This is also why zero-day vulnerabilities are very popular among criminal organizations, states and state-sponsored advanced persistent threats. The other side of the coin is when a state identifies a zero-day, and ends up in the ethical dilemma of whether to release the news and inform the vendor to patch it, i.e. close the vulnerability, or to use it for offensive or intelligence purposes. This article employs these distinctions to apply anticipatory ethics in the Stuxnet-case. Stuxnet was a computer software that was allegedly developed by the U.S. together with Israel to disrupt Iran’s development of uranium for their nuclear program. More exactly, it was developed to disable the uranium centrifuges used to enrich uranium. To achieve this, Stuxnet exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities and, according to some experts, managed to delay Iran’s nuclear program by one to two-years, forcing them to the negotiation table. Using vulnerabilities like zero-days presents opportunities but also risks. The results of the application of anticipatory ethics to the Stuxnet case are then compared with the “Osirak”-case and the “al-Kibar”-case. Osirak was the nuclear reactor in Iraq and was bombed in 1981; al-Kibar was the nuclear reactor being built up in Syria, also bombed in 2007.

The Executive Order 13800—Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure—issued by the President of the United States, calls for an evaluation of the “readiness and gaps in the United States’ ability to manage and mitigate consequences of a cyber incident against the electricity subsector.” In May of 2018, the Office of Management and Budget finished evaluating the 96 risk assessments conducted by various agencies and published Federal Cybersecurity Risk Determination Report and Action Plan (Risk Report). While the report embraced a broad defending forward strategy, it made no reference to smart grids or their vulnerable intelligent substations and did not address how federal agencies plan to respond to emerging threats to these systems. While the paper does not discuss how to attack the smart grids in the cyber domain, the contribution to the academic debate lies in validating some of the vulnerabilities of the grid’s substations in order for government, private industry, academia, and civil society to better collaborate in disrupting or halting malicious cyber activities before they disrupt the power supply of the United States and its Transatlantic allies. We also discuss how Artificial Intelligence and related techniques can mitigate security risks to cyber-physical systems. Until this technology becomes available, however, standardization of cyber security efforts must be enforced through regulatory means, such as the enforcement of security-by-design Intelligent Electronic Devices and protocols for the smart grid. 

Many countries around the world are facing a shortage of healthcare resources, especially during the post-epidemic era, leading to a dramatic increase in the need for self-detection and self-management of diseases. The popularity of smart wearable devices, such as smartwatches, and the development of machine learning bring new opportunities for the early detection and management of various prevalent diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes. In this survey, we comprehensively review the articles related to specific diseases or health issues based on small wearable devices and machine learning. More specifically, we first present an overview of the articles selected and classify them according to their targeted diseases. Then, we summarize their objectives, wearable device and sensor data, machine learning techniques, and wearing locations. Based on the literature review, we discuss the challenges and propose future directions from the perspectives of privacy concerns, security concerns, transmission latency and reliability, energy consumption, multi-modality, multi-sensor, multi-devices, evaluation metrics, explainability, generalization and personalization, social influence, and human factors, aiming to inspire researchers in this field.

I dagens samhälle används information till att sköta dagliga ärenden. Både militära och civila är beroende av cybervärlden i freds- och kristid. För att kunna skydda sina system måste man förstå hur de kan angripas.

Syftet med forskningen är att finna ambitionsnivåer och metoder inom datanätverksattack-verksamheten (CNA-verksamhet) som försvarsmakten kan vidmakthålla i stater med högtek-nologisk utveckling men med låga försvarsresurser. Vilken teknologisk datanäverkattack-förmåga rekommenderas en sådan stats försvarsmakt på fem till tio års tidsperspektiv samt med vilka sätt kan man uppnå verkan?

I arbetet används kvalitativ dataanalys. Med axial kodning, enligt Strauss "Grounded Theo-ry", kategoriseras de olika komponenterna som CNA-förmågorna består av. Dessa kategorier analyseras sedan med hjälp av Rasmussens riskteori i ett informationsteknologiskt system.

I studien framgår det att en högteknologisk småstat bör sträva efter spetskompetens i de för-mågor som bidrar till att man kan testa och försvara sina egna kritiska och sårbara system. En sådan kompetens är förmågan att utföra datanätverksexploatering (CNE-verksamhet). Om en försvarsmakt som har förmåga till att genomföra avancerad CNE-verksamhet, så kan den genomföra behövlig CNA-verksamhet. För en stat med begränsade försvarsresurser kräver genomförandet av CNA-verksamhet dock strategiskt samarbete med olika civila partner. Av dessa är universitet och teknologiskt avancerade företag/industrier de främsta partnerna.

Resultatet visar dessutom att den informationstekniska kunskapen är av tillräcklig nivå, men att det behövs förbättringar inom det informationspsykologiska området. Ambitionsnivån be-höver inte överstiga förmågan att genomföra CNE-verksamhet.

Även om CNE-verksamheten är teknologiskt betonad, så åstadkoms den informationspsyko-logiska effekten med att koordinera CNA-verksamheten inom informationsoperationer. I framtiden är det troligare att uppnå en högre effekt på en motståndare via en informations-psykologisk inriktning.

Organisatoriskt är det kostnadseffektivare att skapa "eldledningsförmåga inom CNA" än se-parata enheter som man inkorporerar i den normala organisationsstrukturen. Storleken på en CNA-enhet kan hållas låg med hjälp av strategiska partner.

Som biprodukt framgår det att det behövs ytterligare forskning i uppdelandet ansvaret i at-tack-, exploaterings-, underrättelseinhämtnings- och försvarsförmåga (CNA/CNE/CNI/CND-verksamheten).

The presence of state-sponsored actors executing offensive cyberspace operations (OCO) has been made evident in recent years. The term offensive cyberspace operations encompass a range of different actions, including cyberespionage, disinformation campaigns, spread of malware and more. Based on an analysis of past events, it is evident that state- sponsored actors are causing harm to the civilian sector using OCO. However, the degree to which civilian organizations understand the threat from state-sponsored actors is currently unknown. This research seeks to provide new a better understanding of OCO and their impact on civilian organizations. To highlight this domain, the case of the threat actor Advanced Persistent Threat 1 (APT1) is presented, and its impact on three civilian organizations discussed. Semi-structured interviews were used to research how the threats from OCO and state-sponsored actors are perceived by civilian organizations. First, a computational literature review was used to get an overview of related work and establish question themes. Next, the question themes were used to develop questions for the interview guide, followed by separate interviews with five security professionals working in civilian organizations. The interviews were analysed using thematic coding and the identified themes summarized as the result of this research. The results show that all respondents are aware of the threat from OCO, but they perceive it in different ways. While all respondents acknowledge state-sponsored actors at a threat agentexecuting OCO, some respondent’s argue that state-sponsored actors are actively seeking footholds in systems for future use while others state that the main goal of state-sponsored actors is to steal information. This suggests that the understanding of the threat imposed by OCO is limited, or at least inconsistent, among civilian security experts. As an interview study, the generalisability of this research is limited. However, it does demonstrate that the civilian society does not share a common view of the threat from state-sponsored actors and OCO. As such, it demonstrates a need for future research in this domain and can serve as a starting point for such projects.

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.

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.

This Letter considers scattered sound from transiently oscillating gas bubbles in liquids. The full transient problem including the finite duration of the excitation is analyzed. As a result, the wave front of the radiated sound pulse involving information about the excitation is also studied. The model presented is used to simulate sound pulses from sea-surface bubbles which have been generated by, for example, spilling breakers, capillary-gravity waves, and rain drops. Although very simple in relation to the actual physical process of excitation, this model enables us to predict some of the essential properties of scattered pulses observed experimentally. It is suggested that the time scale of duration of the initial driving that enters into the present analysis might be of some use in a further physical understanding of bubble generation and excitation.

The aim of this Comment is to suggest some possible improvements and developments of the investigation by Zhen Ye [J. Acoust. Sec. Am. 101, 3299-3305 (1997)]. Particular attention is given to the causality concept and the use of integral theorems.

This investigation concerns free linear gas bubble oscillations in liquids. Of prime interest is the eigenfrequency, and in particular its real part, here named as the transient frequency. The conceptual difference between the more frequently consulted resonance frequency and the transient frequency is first addressed by means of the classical mechanical oscillator. Next, bubble pulsations in liquids are discussed and an existing model is used for the gas-liquid interaction from which an approximate expression for the eigenfrequency is derived. A rationale for the approximate evaluation of the functions modeling the thermal processes is suggested which is independent of the frequency content of any possible pressure excitation, Moreover, compressibility effects are not approximated in the derivation presented here, The quantitative difference between the adiabatic resonance frequency and the derived estimate of the transient frequency is found to be of significance for small bubbles. Finally, the similarity between a standard mechanical oscillator and a bubble in a liquid for the case of liquid-compressibility effects only is discussed.

The relation between the wavefront speed and the group velocity concept is studied in this work. The relationship between the more well-known velocity concept named as the phase velocity and the speed of propagation of a front of an acoustic pulse is discussed. This is of interest since it concerns transient wave propagation and is, in general, not well known. The form and properties of a pulse can be obtained by means of a Fourier integral and estimates based on quantities derived for monochromatic waves, such as the phase velocity, can be severely misleading and confusing. The wavefront velocity is defined as the high-frequency Limit of the phase velocity. This quantity can be far less than the value of the phase velocity for finite frequencies which for example is the case for bubbly fluids. Then the group velocity concept is discussed, which was introduced in order to characterize the propagation of water waves of essentially the same wavelength. However, more confusion occurs in that it is sometimes believed that a wavefront is propagating with the group velocity (a limit process not mentioned) since it can be related to the propagation of energy. This interpretation of energy propagation is based on sinusoidal waves and involves time as well as space averages and is not applicable for pulses. However, by means of the expression for the group velocity given by Stokes it is shown that the speed of a wavefront can be found from the group velocity at a limiting high frequency. This result can be understood geometrically from the definition of the group velocity given by Lamb which is conservation of wavelength. A wavefront is a discontinuity and limiting short wavelengths will be found there.

In this paper it is demonstrated that a theoretical model for wave propagation may indeed correspond to a well-posed transient problem although the group velocity for finite frequencies becomes greater than the high frequency limit of the phase velocity, negative or even infinite. Sufficient conditions for causality dare derived and the particular cases of relaxing and bubbly fluids are considered so as to show-some of the properties of the group velocity concept.

Weather has a significant influence on navigation processes. Driving dur-ing a heavy rain, for example, is slower and due to poor visibility more dangerous than driving in perfect weather conditions. Thus from time management and safety perspective including weather information is bene-ficial. Weather, especially rain may also be critical for transportation tasks since some commodities like straw or sand should not get wet. In the last years, the quality of weather information and weather forecast has im-proved and could be used to improve route planning. The paper discusses how weather information can be included in route planning algorithms. A first approximating algorithm to incorporate weather forecast data is pre-sented. Some examples showing the impact on route planning conclude the paper.

Will-to-defend (försvarsvilja) is central to the Swedish concept of ’total defence’ (totalförsvar). It represents an individual and collective inclination to think or act in support of the defence of the nation. Psychological defence (psykologiskt försvar) shields will-to-defend from foreign influence campaigns that attempt to degrade it. This thesis sets out to create a serious game to teach elements of will-to-defend and concludes that such a game is possible but serious challenges remain with regards to the inclusion of psychological defence and in adjudicating the outcomes of influence operations in serious games. 

Current research into will-to-defend and psychological defence are limited to the Swedish context and have not been tested in warfare. This thesis proposes that cognitive warfare is a relevant proxy concept for modern-day attempts to degrade will-to-defend and proposes that elections interference is a relevant proxy context for a serious influence game that aims to teach core concepts involved in attempts to degrade will-to-defend. A systems integrated model for elections interference is composed from existing scholarly research and its core elements are decomposed into essential learning blocks. Finally, a serious influence game is developed and venues for effective in-game adjudication are explored. 

This paper is about the development of modern artillery fire control simulators. The Saab BT 33 had few equals when it was operational in the early 1970s. The accounts describe the introduction of the digital computer and its victory over older control technologies during long-term social change. The case illustrates the role of engineering and craft in practice, ultimately to make the practice more controllable. The case also shows how piecemeal solutions risk becoming victims of technical innovations. The use of modern information technology for control and other purposes, only if socially accepted in its context within strong traditions, may be efficient.

This chapter deepens our understanding of cyber crises with the help of the creeping crisis concept. The chapter shows that although emerging technologies make malicious activities in cyberspace more sophisticated, vulnerabilities enabling such threats have been inherent in cyber assets for a very long time in the form of creeping crises. The question is: was WannaCry the acute crisis or just a precursor event to a bigger explosion? It is argued that the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 should be considered a wake-up call. The chapter demonstrates how the cyber threat was lurking in the background, gradually evolving in time and space in a non-linear fashion and receiving varying levels of attention.

The complex environments that the archipelago provides, alongside the technical developments of drones, create a new form of threat. The Visby class corvette is a complex platform that can fulfil many different tasks both above and below the surface. This thesis will look closer at its surface-to-air defense system, and capability to defend against drones.

Some of the drones that are used in the Russo-Ukrainian war, are Switchblade 300, 600 and Shahed-136. The thesis aims to investigate these drones and what threat they may pose against a Visby Corvette, to see if the ship’s protection is sufficient. 

The ship has good self-protection against incoming threats from the air, but due to the location of the weapon systems on the ship, there is a limitation in obtaining full protection. The protection can also be hampered by the complex environment that the archipelago entails. A drone can exploit this limitation of self-protection and obtain the possibility of damaging the sensors of the ship that are relatively unprotected. This means that the ship cannot fully solve the assigned tasks due to its need for repairs. 

In conclusion, to prevent this, four different actions can be taken. Avoid narrow straits, if possible. Ask external units for escort. Install a weapon station in the stern to increase self-protection and provide the vessel with signal interference technology.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the transformation of Twitter from a usable tool for spreading information to a space for learning. When we talk about different software, we in many cases can’t phantom their outreach and connectivity. Specific software solutions have been integrated into our lives making them a part of ourselves. Specific tools can be designed to enhance specific functions within the software such as automatic accounts spreading keywords users write. Users are humans and perceive their cyber environment in the same way as they perceive human interaction in real life. The transformation changed the tool to an area of operation where different stakeholders can interact with each other. From an intelligence perspective, the distinction between technology and HUMINT no longer serves its purposes of classification – it has merged into one and the same. From the perspective of C2, information technology in itself is still emphasized at the cost of other dimensions, hence obscuring the very mechanisms of how what is only seen as social media in fact is a dimension of itself. While the human dimension is sometimes addressed, there is a dearth of research exploring its workings.

The development within the area of information and communications technology (ICT) has been rapid during the last couple of decades. Advancements in mobile technology, such as smartphones and other portable devices with embedded sensors, rapid expansion of communications infrastructure, and increased spectrum utilization, has had a major impact on civilian society, but increasingly also on professional organizations such as the Swedish Armed Forces. While this technology allows for enhanced capabilities in the areas of command and control, situational awareness, and information management, it also leads to new challenges in such areas as cyber security and privacy. For armed forces in many parts of the world, being able to deploy in new types of missions, such as humanitarian assistance and response operations due to natural or man-made disasters, is an increasingly sought-after capability. Such operations commonly require collaboration amongst several heterogeneous organizations, which in turn requires technical as well as organizational interoperability. While the actors must be able to share certain information efficiently, with regards to integrity and availability, sensitive or classified information must be safeguarded in terms of confidentiality.

This thesis is concerned with studying emerging ICT for use on the battlefield of tomorrow, investigating how it can lead to more effective operations, and what preconditions that must be met in order for the technology to be of utility for inter-organizational collaboration. In particular, the thesis studies how an acceptable level of information security can be upheld in interconnected tactical communications networks. It is found that Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, Software-Defined Radio and Cognitive Radio are emerging technologies that, while still immature, can contribute to improved capabilities for communications, command and control, and information collection. Furthermore, Hastily Formed Networks is found to be an effective framework for collaboration between heterogeneous actors. However, in order for emerging ICTs to provide military utility, several non-technical requirements must be met. These include usability, trust, legality, cost, and verifying that the technology is in accordance with current military doctrine. Antagonistic as well as unintentional threats must also be mitigated, including information leaks caused by cyberattacks or insiders, and possible consequences of reduced user privacy.

Besides to the Swedish Armed Forces, this thesis should be of interest to armed forces of comparable countries, and for professional organizations faced with similar challenges. Among the drawn conclusions, the thesis recommends continuously evaluating emerging ICT in support of new capabilities, through academic research as well as internal concept development. Adopting an incremental and modular process is also recommended when developing or procuring new ICT systems, instead of making long-term investments in proprietary technology. Furthermore, a focus should be put on promoting military requirements in future civilian ICT standards. In this way development costs can be reduced, while facilitating tactical use of commercial off-the-shelf products. Regarding information security in tactical networks for inter-organizational collaboration the thesis concludes that employing best-effort methods could allow for efficient information exchange between actors, while upholding acceptable risk levels regarding data leakage.

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.

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.

Reconfigurable Radio Systems (RRS), based on technologies such as Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) offer considerable advantages for military operations, such as increased network survivability and interoperability. The RRS-based Common Tactical Radio System (GTRS), currently in development by the Swedish Armed Forces, is designed for use in diverse geographical settings and for purposes varying from international combat missions to national contingency operations. However, protecting these networks from attacks and safeguarding the carried information against leaks is an ongoing research challenge, especially in combined scenarios where tactical data may flow across organizational boundaries. This paper presents a best-effort approach to Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) for inter-organizational RRS-based networks. The proposed architecture makes use of data mining techniques and an efficient n-dimensional clustering algorithm which has previously been successfully used for real-time anomaly detection in critical infrastructure protection. The DLP architecture is developed as an extension to the GTRS system, modeled and simulated in OPNET™ Modeler. Our results show that common data leaks can be efficiently identified by the proposed scheme, while keeping the important false positive rate at a very low level.

Mapping of forest areas and other landscapes as to combine information about ground structures, topography as well as other natural and man-made features can be made with help of LiDAR (Elmqvist, M. 2001). The result can be used for planning military and civil missions and analysis of the possibility to drive though areas with bad or no roads (Sivertun & Gumos 2006) as well as for management of natural recourses and for example in physical planning. By combining LiDAR and other remotely sensed data it is possible to make use of the different advantages the different sensors provides. In this article based on a test in Linköping municipality, Sweden, we have employed the LiDAR based SingleTree™ detection model (Ahlberg at al 2008) and hyper spectral image data as to improve the classification of the trees and the ground surface under the trees. This method differs from similar models like in Béland et al. (2014) and Côté et al (2011) that uses terrestrial TLiDAR sensors to identify the species of trees.

By detecting returns of laser beams that passed through the vegetation and are reflected back to the sensor, it is possible to detect ditches, stones, logs and other obstacles to passing through the area. The data from modern LiDAR sensors can have very high spatial resolution, in many cases 50 points/m2 or more. By filtering the LiDAR data it is also possible to detect vehicles and man-made objects that are hidden under the vegetation, especially if the LIDAR uptake is compared with an earlier registration, movements and differences can be detected.

LiDAR registrations are today made by the forest industry in order to obtain better and more accurate information about the vegetation and improve their activities. Observation of the health of plants or trees becomes more important as a consequence from global warming and increased pressure from insects and diseases. There is also an increasing demand on forests and crops as to fill the demands from a growing and partly wealthier world (Kamaruzaman J. and Kasawani I., 2009). In forestry the LiDAR data are used to plan for harvest, building forest roads and timber transports. Another important source of data is Hyper Spectral Scenes (HSS) where the reflected solar light is analysed to identify anomalies in the spectral response and get a hint about the health of the canopy (Hyperspectral Imaging 2011). The difference from using multispectral images in comparison with other remotely sensed data is that the hyper spectral sensor delivers response in several hundred small and well-defined spectral wavelength bands. Those are supposed to indicate the biomass and water content as well as the difference between the absorption and the reflectance band for chlorophyll and many other conditions. A system can be used to identify the spectral signature in a certain area in order to decide what material and colours that should be used for camouflage. The data can be combined with LiDAR and used in the classification of forests, soils and other landscape features in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Modern development of sensors and platforms makes it possible to use for example Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) like helicopters to collect LiDAR and HSS data.

We present a first effort to experimentally evaluate if, and how, the instructions given to an operator can cause significant effects regarding his/her change detection performance. The operator monitors a display looking for changes associated with specified target objects. The results show that a more differentiated monitoring instruction can cause a raised level of change blindness to occur for some of the displayed target object classes. We argue that the result will have implications for the intelligence function within military command and control.

The goal of this study is to provide an analysis of cyber crisis management by identifying relations between this emerging field and the better established subject of general crisis management. This includes terminology and key concepts in these fields. This study further seeks to gain knowledge and understanding of the involved actors’ perspectives on the challenges for Cyber Crisis management within the European context.

The purpose of the study is twofold: to compare concepts from the general crisis management systems with the corresponding systems related to cyber crisis management, and to conduct a conceptual analysis of the language and terminology within these two fields. The primary aim is to analyse the similarities and differences between general and cyber crisis management, employing examples from countries and organizations within the EU.

Based on interviews with members of key national and EU institutions, and on an analysis of the differences between their practitioner perspectives and the theories of general crisis management, the study arrives at six key areas of recommendations for future activities in the cyber security realm.

During this study ENISA gathered and analysed a large set of over 200 exercises. In addition to the exercise dataset, ENISA analysed specialised literature such as after-action reports and previous studies that have contributed to the analysis. This report includes a model for describing and reporting on such exercises. The study is a step forward towards better resource for planning and collaboration between nations and agencies interested in cybersecurity exercises. The findings show a continuous and accelerated increase in the total amount of exercises held after 2012, as well as an increase in the number of cooperative exercises involving private and public actors. This indicates that it is not just a matter of public agencies running more exercises, but also of more actors benefiting from these exercises.