The Emergence of Cyber Defense and Governance Structures in the Middle East

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: What motivates Middle Eastern nations to develop the cybersecurity governance agencies that protect from malicious cyber activity? As the world has watched major cyber powers such as China, Russia and the United States emerge, the Middle East -- a region often at the forefront of conversations on conventional military conflict -- has been broadly neglected in the scholarship on cyber warfare. This is a consequential omission as cyber conflict is on the rise between Middle Eastern states. Analysis of an original data set of over 50 significant cyber incidents since 2007 shows that the biggest perpetrators of malicious cyber activity against Middle Eastern states are state actors within the region, not extra-regional states, third-party hacking groups, terrorist organizations and political organizations. Moreover, this malicious cyber activity has had two major waves of increase that align with both the Arab Spring and the Persian Gulf Crisis. The growing threat of regional cyber conflict suggests that Middle Eastern nations have been motivated to develop cyber defense structures in response to a growing regional threat of malicious cyber activity.

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 2021

Author	Yeager, Kate
Advisor	McMaster, Lt. Gen. H.R.
Advisor	Blaydes, Lisa
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/dy693nt0884

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Yeager, Kate. (2021). The Emergence of Cyber Defense and Governance Structures in the Middle East. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/dy693nt0884

Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses

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