Moscow’s Digital Offensive: Building Sovereignty in Cyberspace
Speaker: Dr. Carolina Vendil Palli (Swedish Defence Research Agency)
Date: 29 July 2021
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Carolina Vendil Pallin (Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI)) as a part of its SMA IIJO Speaker Series.
Dr. Pallin commented that Russia’s conception of cyber operations is different than most Western countries. The term cyber is rarely found in Russian security documents; instead information space is more frequently used. Its choice of terminology shows Russia’s priority is controlling the information available to its domestic population. This control, which allows Russia to create a sovereign space online, is meant to alleviate the Kremlin’s insecurities. The Roskmnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) was given direct control over Russia’s internet in the case of an existential crisis or war. However, Roskomnadzor had already taken control of Russia’s internet and slowed down Twitter and all addresses containing ‘t.co’ to stop anti-Russian messages from reaching its civilian population.
While Russia is concerned with the defense of its sovereign internet, it is also very active in its foreign cyber operations. Currently, Russia is among the top 10 origin countries for malign cyber operations. Furthermore, Russian cyber operations are active along the entire scale including: a) disruption, b) espionage, and c) sabotage. These cyber operations often occur covertly as well, which allows Russia to maintain plausible deniability. Dr. Pallin stated that there are several dilemmas facing Russian cyber operations, including but not limited to: technology evolving faster than Russia’s legal policies, cyber operations cost, and the ideological differences between older and younger Russian generations.
Speaker Session Recording
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Briefing Materials
Carolina Vendil Pallin works at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), where she headed the Russia Programme at FOI from 2009–2012 and 2014–2016. She holds a PhD from the LSE. Her previous positions include Senior Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, where she headed the Research Programme “Russia and Its Neighbours” (2006–2009), and Expert Advisor for the Swedish Defence Commission (2012–2013). She is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences and is the Chair of its Security Policy Division. Her publications on Russian cyber affairs include ‘Internet Control through Ownership: The Case of Russia’, in Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 1; ‘Russian Information Security and Warfare”, in Roger Kanet (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Russian Security, Routledge; and an FOI Report, Key Actors in Forming Russian Cyber Strategy 2000–2020 [in Swedish].
This speaker session supported SMA’s Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO) project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the IIJO project page.
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