Michele Colajanni

This course provides an understanding of the risks associated with political competition and conflict in cyberspace. The course is organized in three parts: cyberspace and cyber threats, defensive strategies, and a look at the future. Students won’t be required to know all the technical details and different types of cyber-attacks but need to understand basic cyber-related terminology and concepts, and use them in the right context.

Part I aims to enable students to understand actors, technologies, economy and geopolitical of cyberspace, to interpret explicit and latent cyberconflicts including state-related actions and relevant incidents, to analyze cyber actors, threats and damages from a geopolitical perspective. A session evaluating the risk management industry’s engagement in cyber, including an introduction to cyber insurance and risk modeling, concludes this part.

Part II examines cyber risk mitigation strategies. It compares national cybersecurity strategies of the US, EU, China, Russia, Iran, and Israel. The following session focuses on data protection and service resilience objectives, and the key roles of critical infrastructures and threat intelligence even for attribution purposes. The last session focuses on the politics of and compliance with the 2015 US-China accord as the most important bilateral cyber restraint agreement to date. An in-class exercise ensures students’ grasp of the basics of conflict risk and cybersecurity strategies in cyberspace.

Part III looks at the future by evidencing that information technology, cyber threats and defenses evolve at an incredible pace. It discusses additional political and economic issues/opportunities to consider with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, sophisticated disinformation campaigns and cyber-physical systems.