Finding the thieves amongst the liars: Thinking clearly about cyber-enabled influence operations

Abstract How do cyber attacks aid attempts to generate influence? This article argues that cyber-enabled influence operations (CEIO) are more varied in form than is often recognised by scholars. We describe four kinds of CEIO activities – preparatory attacks, manipulative attacks, attacks in parallel, and influence-enabling – and observe that the type most often referenced by scholars (manipulative attacks) is the one whose utility is most substantially constrained by the clashing logics of cyber and influence operations. Our analysis suggests a clear theoretical basis for understanding cyber-influence interactions, namely that the style of cyber operational targeting is inversely tied to the scale of influence outcomes intended by an attacker. Tactics and the conditions that motivate them change as the scale of interference intended by the attacker varies over time, with tools and approaches that offer utility in one phase failing to do so in another as the environment transforms and interacts with attacker interests.