Is Cyber Deterrence an Illusory Course of Action?

Deterrence, Influence, Cyber Attack, and Cyberwar

* Paul K. Davis is a senior principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and a professor of policy analysis in the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His early studies were in the hard sciences and he received a Ph.D. in theoretical chemical physics at M.I.T. After working on strategic technology and systems analysis at the Institute for Defense Analyses, he joined the U.S. government to work on stra...

Course of Action Generation for Cyber Security Using Classical Planning

We report on the results of applying classical planning techniques to the problem of analyzing computer network vulnerabilities. Specifically, we are concerned with the generation of Adversary Courses of Action, which are extended sequences of exploits leading from some initial state to an attacker’s goal. In this application, we have demonstrated the generation of attack plans for a simple but...

Rethinking the Cyber Domain and Deterrence

Alternatives to Cyber Warfare: Deterrence and Assurance

Deterrence as practiced during the Cold War was largely defined in terms of capabilities to impose punishment in response to an attack; however, with growing concern over the proliferation of cyber technologies, deterrence has evolved to be understood more generally in terms of cost/benefit calculi, viewed from not only a national perspective, but also recognizing the importance of both friendl...

Deterrence of Cyber Attacks and U.S. National Security

This paper draws on deterrence theory to analyze the challenges that the United States faces in deterring cyber attacks. We begin by briefly reviewing the basic logic of deterrence theory and relating it to the challenge posed by cyber attacks. The following section explores what is commonly viewed as the key problem in deterring cyber attacks—the “attribution problem” arises when a state canno...