Optimizing Cyberdeterrence: A Comprehensive Strategy for Preventing Foreign Cyberattacks

by Robert Mandel

Cyberattacks are one of the greatest fears for governments and the private sector. The attacks come without warning and can be extremely costly and embarrassing. Robert Mandel offers a unique and comprehensive strategic vision for how governments, in partnership with the private sector, can deter cyberattacks from both nonstate and state actors. Cyberdeterrence must be different from conventional military or nuclear deterrence, which are mainly based on dissuading an attack by forcing the aggressor to face unacceptable costs. In the cyber realm, where attributing a specific attack to a specific actor is extremely difficult, conventional deterrence principles are not enough. Mandel argues that cyberdeterrence must alter a potential attacker’s decision calculus by not only raising costs for the attacker but also by limiting the prospects for gain. Cyberdeterrence must also involve indirect unorthodox restraints, such as exposure to negative blowback and deceptive diversionary measures, and cross-domain measures rather than just retaliation in kind. The book includes twelve twenty-first-century cyberattack case studies to draw insights into cyberdeterrence and determine the conditions under which it works most effectively. Mandel concludes by making recommendations for implementing cyberdeterrence and integrating it into broader national security policy. Cyber policy practitioners and scholars will gain valuable and current knowledge from this excellent study.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2017

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing wrong about it but it waffles on in a repetitive manner and offers the kind of advice that is only relevant to nation states. None of it is radical and it's the kind of general advice everyone would immediately agree on since it doesn't really mandate anything specific. Beyond that it's a random selection of electronic attacks over the past couple of decades. It's disappointing that attacks that result in DDoS of non critical websites or their defacements are mentioned in the same paragraphs as real attacks as if they were relevant to anyone other than mainstream media who think hackers destroyed VISA because their corporate website is down.