Blockchain’s Potential Role in Constraining Future Cyber Conflict

Posted: May 11th, 2017

By Luke McNamara

Luke McNamara is a Senior Analyst on FireEye's Horizons team, which conducts strategic forecasting to anticipate risks posed by emerging technologies and geopolitical developments. McNamara was formerly a Cyber Espionage Threat Analyst at iSIGHT Partners prior to its acquisition by FireEye. Additionally, he supported the establishment of a cyber threat intelligence team at one of the largest banks in Australia. Prior to working in the cybersecurity industry, McNamara spent several years supporting a defense contractor on various counterinsurgency programs.

At the RSA conference in February, Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer called for a “digital Geneva Convention” to help provide parameters on offensive cyber operations and address a rapidly growing area of concern for many organizations. This followed on the heels of the release of the second iteration of the Tallinn Manual, an attempt at shaping international laws on cyber warfare.

Concurrent to these conversations, there is an emerging discussion over the utility of “loud” cyber weapons. Theoretically, these cyber weapons could be linked and attributed to the originating actors, potentially valuable for some military applications where after-the-fact attribution may be desired. In other words, for some applications – particularly in the case of military operations – baked-in attribution would be desirable to alleviate confusion and to separate such nation-state activity from clandestine or covert intelligence operations.

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