An assessment of historical and emerging nation-state cyber threats: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

摘要

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the appearance of North Korea and Iran as significant cyber threats to the United States, in addition to China and Russia. This paper presented key findings and studies that showed the timeline of significant events through the history of Russian and Chinese (respectively) cyber activity, to substantiate claims that they are a threat to the United States and other countries. Further, industry expert reports and studies are presented that estimate the capabilities of North Korea, and also of Iran. The reported key findings are important to the future of what is known about foreign cyber threats, because of the lack of historical studies regarding North Korea and Iran. Finally, key ideas from expert reports were assessed in order to make recommendations to industry leaders for protection and mitigation of cyber attacks from North Korea and Iran, in addition to Russia and China.