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Cyber Operations stopped being utopia or Sci-Fi based scenarios: they became reality. When planning and conducting them, military actors encounter difficulties since they lack methodologies and models that support their actions and assess their effects. To address these issues by tackling the underlying scientific and practical gap, this article proposes an assessment methodology for the intended and unintended effects of Cyber Operations, labeled as Military Advantage, Collateral Damage and Military Disadvantage, and aims at supporting the targeting process when engaging targets in Cyber Operations. To arrive at this methodology, an extensive review on literature, military doctrine and methodologies was conducted combined with two series of interviews with military commanders and field work in joint military exercises. The assessment methodology is proposed considering multidimensional factors, phases and steps in a technical - military approach. For validation, one realistic Cyber Operation case study was conducted in a focus group with nine military experts plus four face-to-face meetings with another four military experts.

Cyber Operations stopped being utopia or Sci-Fi based scenarios: they became reality. When planning and conducting them, military actors encounter difficulties since they lack methodologies and models that support their actions and assess their effects. To address these issues by tackling the underlying scientific and practical gap, this article proposes an assessment methodology for the intended and unintended effects of Cyber Operations, labeled as Military Advantage, Collateral Damage and Military Disadvantage, and aims at supporting the targeting process when engaging targets in Cyber Operations. To arrive at this methodology, an extensive review on literature, military doctrine and methodologies was conducted combined with two series of interviews with military commanders and field work in joint military exercises. The assessment methodology is proposed considering multidimensional factors, phases and steps in a technical – military approach. For validation, one realistic Cyber Operation case study was conducted in a focus group with nine military experts plus four face-to-face meetings with another four military experts.

Cyber operations lack models, methodologies, and mechanisms to describe relevant data and knowledge. This problem is directly reflected when cyber operations are conducted and their effects assessed, and it can produce dissonance and disturbance in corresponding decision-making processes and communication between different military actors. To tackle these issues, this article proposes a knowledge model for cyber operations implemented as a computational ontology following a design science approach grounded on extensive technical-military research. This model classifies the essential entities of cyber operations and is exemplified in three case studies. Validation results show that this model can be used to describe cyber operations clearly and concisely.

In the last decades we witnessed the creation of a virtual world: cyberspace, which offers plenty of opportunities and challenges. Meanwhile, we are confronted with many conflict situations between different groups of people or countries. In the last years, several events have been described in terms of cyber warfare or the use of cyber weapons, leading to critical international security concerns. At the same time, there is little research on the definitions of what constitutes a cyber weapon and how it can be profiled.The present article gives an answer to the question “How to define cyber weapons?” and proposes a conceptual framework that defines and profiles cyber weapons from a multidisciplinary perspective: cyber and military, considering legal aspects as well. This framework establishes the context of use and the life cycle of cyber weapons, defines them, presents their structure and proposes a way to profile them. The aim of this article is to support decision makers and academia that have to deal with the implications and consequences of cyber weapons. Therefore, to evaluate our framework, we propose a profiling matrix for Stuxnet, Operation Orchard and Black Energy and we conduct an exploratory case study on Stuxnet based on the existing literature and reports. We conclude by presenting our future research.

Cyber Warfare is perceived as a radical shift in the nature of warfare. It can represent a real alternative next to other types of Military Operations to achieve military and/or political goals in front of adversaries. To this end, Cyber Operations use specific technologies i.e. cyber weapons/capabilities/means. With a short but intense history of incidents/ events labelled as Cyber Operations or Cyber Warfare incidents, their potential and scale of impact has proven to cross geographical and digital borders. In this way, their effects are impacting not only their engaged targets, but also other collateral actors and systems, at local, national, regional, and global scale.