Cyber Project

Join the Belfer Center’s Cyber Project on Tuesday, September 27, for a discussion on “Six Challenges the U.S. Must Win” and other key findings in the first report from the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP). The SCSP is tasked with developing a plan to improve the U.S. position in the international competition by 2025 and identify those technology areas where we must act by 2030 to retain our advantage.

Cyber Project Executive Director and acting Belfer Center Executive Director Lauren Zabierek will speak with authors of the report, Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness, about what they’ve learned about U.S. competitiveness following hundreds of meetings during the past year and what they recommend as paths forward. An audience Q&A will follow the discussion.

Financially motivated cyber operations, especially cybercrime, represent an increasingly central component of North Korea’s strategy for evading sanctions and generating illicit revenue. In this event, Priscilla Moriuchi and Alex O’Neill will discuss ongoing trends and future expectations for North Korean financially motivated cyber operations, as well as O’Neill’s recent report, Cybercriminal Statecraft.

This event is co-sponsored by the Korea Project and the Cyber Project.

*Please note the room change for in-person attendees.*

“It is getting harder to get big things done in America.  To meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, our country needs a reset.” - American Reboot

Join the Intelligence and Cyber Projects in conversation with former Congressman Will Hurd. Mr. Will Hurd is currently a managing director at Allen & Company and former member of Congress, cybersecurity executive, and undercover officer in the CIA. In his forthcoming book, American Reboot, he tackles five challenges facing the United States: the need for a principled vision from the Republican Party; what he sees as a lack of honest leadership in Washington, DC; income inequality threatening the livelihood of millions of Americans; the lack of a guarantee of continued U.S. economic and military dominance; and the immense scope of impending technological change in the next thirty years. In this candid discussion, we aim to drive at the very specific cyber and intelligence challenges our nation is facing right now, and how we can address them. The discussion will be moderated by Lauren Zabierek, Executive Director of the Cyber Project, and Paul Kolbe, Director of the Intelligence Project. This hybrid event is on the record and the virtual option is open to the public. The in-person option is open only to Harvard affiliates. Registration is required.

Please join the Belfer Center Cyber Project with predoctoral fellow Amy Ertan as she presents her published co-authored work alongside Maggie Gray, Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in the Military: An Overview of NATO Member States’ Strategies and Deployment with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCDCOE) as part of a two-part report series. 

What does artificial intelligence (AI) mean for future warfare? From the DoD’s Strategy to NATO’s Emerging and Disruptive Technologies Roadmap, recent years have seen an intense evolution in understanding, research, and rapid deployment of AI capabilities within the military sphere. This talk focuses first on how the North Atlantic Trade Organisation (NATO) has approached military AI innovation. The presentation will then explore national approaches to AI, drawing on Amy Ertan's doctoral research in which current and former military, technical and policy-focused experts were interviewed on themes including technical security challenges, hype, private-sector military AI innovation, and state perceptions on military "AI arms race" dynamics. 

You can read the NATO CCDCOE report here: https://ccdcoe.org/library/publications/artificial-intelligence-and-autonomy-in-the-military-an-overview-of-nato-member-states-strategies-and-deployment/

Join the Intelligence and Cyber Projects for a hybrid seminar discussion on cybersecurity with Cynthia Kaiser, Section Chief with the FBI's Cyber Division. In the Cyber Division, Cynthia focuses on public-private outreach, information sharing across all levels of government, addressing cyber threats to elections, and identifying and responding to risks from malicious cyber actors. In this talk, Cynthia will discuss the FBI's approach to cyber security risks in the United States and current mitigation measures. This discussion will be moderated by Cyber Project Executive Director Lauren Zabierek.

This event is for Harvard faculty, students, fellows, staff, and affiliates. The event is being held under the Chatham House Rule and is off the record. Attendees may join in person in the Allison Dining Room at HKS (first 50 registrants who opt to join in person), or virtually via Zoom. Please register at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AFLFGQLPTSSzG_AEJ7MAfA. If you are planning to attend person, select the in person option in the registration form.

This event will explore the rise of North Korea as a cyber power and consider what the future of its operations holds, drawing on participants’ expertise and original research.

The increasing tempo of offensive cyber operations by Iran and its adversaries, including the US and Israel, has led many commentators to label them as “tit-for-tat”: a cyclical action-reaction dynamic where each side seeks to respond appropriately to an earlier violation by the other. However, this interpretation has significant theoretical and empirical deficiencies. Why, then, does a tit-for-tat narrative dominate our understanding of Iranian cyber activity, and what are the consequences?

Join the Cyber Project in conversation with James Shires and Mike McGetrick, the authors of the report, Rational Not Reactive: Re-evaluating Expectations of Iranian Cyber Strategy Beyond “Tit-for-Tat.”  The work of Shires and McGetrick, along with important research contributions by HKS MPP graduate, Usha Sahay, will contribute significantly to the collective understanding of Iran's broader strategy for its cyber operations. 

Join the Cyber Project as we explore the grave impacts of ransomware on our national (and international) security.  We will explore recent lessons from attacks on the healthcare and financial industries, discuss recommendations from the Ransomware Task Force, and ask what role the US government should take to combat the threat, especially through the Department of Defense (reports linked below).

The Cyber Peace Insitute: Playing with Lives: Cyberattacks on Healthcare are Attacks on People https://cyberpeaceinstitute.org/publications/sar001-healthcare/

Ransomware Task Force Report: Combatting Ransomware. A Comprehensive Framework for Action: Key Recommendations from the Ransomware Task Force: https://securityandtechnology.org/ransomwaretaskforce/report/ 

What Is Cyber Command’s Role in Combating Ransomware? https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-cyber-commands-role-combating-ransomware 

Join the Cyber Project with Bruce Schneier as he discusses his paper, The Coming AI Hackers:  Bruce Schneier warns that artificial intelligence will eventually find vulnerabilities in all sorts of social, economic, and political systems, and then exploit them at unprecedented speed, scale, and scope. After hacking humanity, AI systems will then hack other AI systems, and humans will be little more than collateral damage.

This event will be held at One Brattle, Suite 470 and will be capped at 15 students per COVID guidelines.

Join Russia Matters and the Cyber Project as we explore whether there should be “Rules of the Road” with Russia in the Cyber domain. Two of the authors of the recent paper, “US-Russian Contention in Cyberspace: Are Rules of the Road Necessary or Possible?” Cyber Project Executive Director Lauren Zabierek and Pavel Sharikov, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, will provide their own perspectives on this topic, exploring where the US and Russia converge and diverge on the issues.

Moderated by Intelligence Project Director Paul Kolbe, this conversation will be especially relevant after the historic Biden-Putin Summit on June 16.  

Disclaimer: This event is under Chatham House Rules. The event organizers prohibit any attendees, including journalists, from audio/visual recording or distributing parts or all of the event program without prior written authorization. If any journalists in attendance would like to quote the panelists, please contact them directly.