Cherian Samuel

The Russia–Ukraine cyberwar has upended a number of existing preconceptions about cyber conflict in an active war.

• Published: February 03, 2023
• IDSA Comments

Militaries are the sword arm of the state, entrusted with defending the state against all threats that would harm its interests. These threats are increasingly emanating from cyberspace and militaries around the world are being called upon formally to undertake responsibility for defending against threats from this domain in addition to the existing physical domains of land, sea, air and space. The unique nature of this domain has required some restructuring on the part of the military.

• Published: January-March 2023
• Journal of Defence Studies

Cyberconflict in Ukraine has become normalised in that it is focused, there is no lasting damage, and it effectively conveys a sense of helplessness to the affected government and population. At the same time, it signals to other governments that they are not impervious to such attacks.

• Published: February 23, 2022
• IDSA Comments

US has undertaken a number of initiatives on cybersecurity, specifically ransomware, one of them being the Counter-Ransomware Initiative Meeting held in October 2021. Whether this attempt by the US to mobilise a larger group of countries to discuss ransomware will lead to real outcomes, or is just meant to endorse its actions, remains to be seen.

• Published: October 22, 2021
• IDSA Comments

With India’s current semiconductor demand of $40 billion expected to rise to $100 billion by 2025, the time is indeed right to begin production of semiconductors within the country.

• Published: March 26, 2021
• IDSA Comments

The iDEX has made a commendable effort at putting a defence start-up ecosystem in place. The challenges ahead include maintaining momentum, obtaining funding, and accessing toolsets and data sets.

• Published: December 11, 2020
• Issue Brief

The existing approach to cyber security is heavily tilted towards practising deterrence by denial, essentially by building defences. However, the concept of deterrence needs further tweaking to make it workable in cyberspace.

• Published: December 16, 2019
• Issue Brief

For a global build-up of cybersecurity, capacity building needs to be given much more importance than it has received till date.

• Published: December 26, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The UNGGE process is the least bad option to keep open channels and maintain continued focus on securing cyberspace.

• Published: March 21, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The introduction to Alexander Klimburg’s book, The Darkening Web: The War for Cyberspace, begins by referencing the Indian parable of the Blind Men of Hindoostan and the elephant to bring out the difficulty of ‘grasping the entirety of cyberspace’. The focus of his book is on international security, and more specifically, the security interests of states in cyberspace. That said, a large part of the book focuses on three countries—the United States, Russia and China—and their approaches and actions in cyberspace. Europe is mentioned largely in the context of privacy and data laws.

• Published: October 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies