ARTICLE: HYBRID THREATS
Geospatial Information to Tackle Hybrid Threats Geospatial information systems help in making informed decisions that are built on accurate information by way of drawing maps and visualizing data to clearly judge which option is the best for that particular situation. By Dr. Josef Schroefl
H
ybrid threats can be simply defined as strategies in which attackers bank initially on a combination of propaganda in the media and social networks until relying on classic warfare. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE) characterizes hybrid threat as: • Coordinated and synchronized action that deliberately targets democratic states and institutions’ systemic vulnerabilities through a wide range of means • Activities that exploit the thresholds of detection and attribution, as well as the different interfaces (war-peace, internal-external security, local-state and national-international). • Activities aimed at influencing different forms of decision-making at the local (regional), state, or institutional level, and designed to further and/or fulfill the agent’s strategic goals while undermining and/or hurting the target.
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The attribution problem
Attribution is one of the biggest problems when it comes to cyber or hybrid activity. Often, states use criminals or third-party groups in sabotage and subversion activities, making tracing difficult. Overall, threat actor sophistication has been seen to have increased in the past year, making detection and attribution more difficult. When we look at the six Ws of any piece of information: who, what, when, where, why, what for, and also ask how, we quickly see that one of the most important parts of any information is the ‘where’. The people planning hybrid threats mostly use intelligence in two principal ways. They either employ their own intelligence capabilities to support planned or ongoing hybrid threat activities, or make attempts to affect the target state’s intelligence operations. In both cases, the actors seek to undermine the target state’s capability to develop and
maintain situational awareness. This is exactly where geospatial information is highly required. The US defines geospatial intelligence as “the intelligence about the human activity on Earth, derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information that describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth”. Therefore, high-quality strategic information is necessary for well-founded decision-making in order to uncover hybrid activities. By recognizing the possibility of a hybrid attack by an opponent, the summary of the intelligence not only offers a potentially decisive defense capability, but also forces the attacker to react quickly. Furthermore, there is a high chance that the opposing side will refrain from the attack if it fears that the threat has already been discovered.
