Cyberespionage

Abstract

The Internet and the cyberenvironment offer an unprecedented opportunity for intelligence and espionage, not only because of the vulnerability or breaches but also because of the massive voluntary dissemination and sharing of data. Espionage has radically changed since the early 2000s, and open source intelligence is utilized to a great extent. Large quantities of personal information are voluntarily surrendered to social media, and the sheer size of this social media information creates intelligence assets, especially when aggregating, inferring, and analyzing the generated new knowledge of circumstances and facts that were not within the reach of intelligence agencies earlier. In addition, governments have pursued releasing unrestricted data in an effort to increase transparency and accountability and as an opportunity to increase economic activity. Businesses started to ...