Author: Neil Ashdown

  • We Buy and Sell: The Public Advertisement of Zero-Day Exploits

    We Buy and Sell: The Public Advertisement of Zero-Day Exploits

    By Max Smeets Zero-day exploits expose a previously unknown vulnerability. They can be especially powerful for gaining access to computer systems or escalating privileges within the system. Zero-day exploit brokers often publicly advertise what they pay out to developers for their new vulnerability discoveries. You can find detailed price lists online that tell you exactly…

  • Offensive Cyber Beyond the Usual Suspects

    Offensive Cyber Beyond the Usual Suspects

    The world’s attention remains focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since the start of the conflict, cybersecurity experts and scholars have engaged in a heated debate over the perceived success and failure of cyber operations. Major crises such as this have also resurfaced questions around the role, form, tactics, and narratives that configure what offensive…

  • Making the Concept of Violence Central to the Study of Offensive Cyber Operations

    Making the Concept of Violence Central to the Study of Offensive Cyber Operations

    Dr Florian J Egloff, Dr James Shires Cyberspace is everywhere. It is so prevalent that the concept has started to lose its functional utility – and, as the recent Facebook rebrand demonstrates, big tech companies still want to make cyber interactions even more seamless and attractive. For the majority of the world’s population with access…

  • To the Frontline and Beyond: How Ransomware’s Operational Details Can Inform Policy and Strategy

    To the Frontline and Beyond: How Ransomware’s Operational Details Can Inform Policy and Strategy

    Dr Jamie Collier Mentioned just once in the UK Government’s Integrated Review, recent events highlight that ransomware is undoubtedly a crucial matter of national security. As Ciaran Martin has already discussed in The Alert, ransomware has recently disrupted oil and meat supplies, education infrastructure, and healthcare operations during a global pandemic. Offensive cyber might be…

  • Balancing on the rail – considering responsibility and restraint in the July 2021 Iran railways incident

    Balancing on the rail – considering responsibility and restraint in the July 2021 Iran railways incident

    JD Work [1], [2] An intrusion against a railway network, resulting in destructive effects leading to disruption of cargo and passenger transportation, would in previous decades likely have been considered a major strategic attack. Early writings on cyber warfare posited such actions only in theory, within the context of adapting ideas of other long-range strike…