Cyber criminals are taking advantage of geopolitical turmoil to launch more sophisticated attacks, testing the resolve of organisations and the strength of their defence systems.
This is one of several themes that was discussed at the ITWeb Security Summit 2025, hosted in Sandton, Johannesburg, recently.
On the sidelines of the summit, over 30 cyber security experts and leaders participated in ITWeb TV interviews to discuss issues such as the impact of global geopolitical tension on security posture or response planning.
One of the discussion points around ransomware highlights how it's being used in geopolitical warfare and the links that some hackers have with nation state actors.
Noelle van der Waag-Cowling, strategy and innovation officer at the Cyber Security Institute, underlined the significance of ‘ransom war’ – a term first coined by Dr Max Smeets, a senior researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.
“I think it’s fair to say that ransomware has reached a level that is unsustainable for economies if it continues to escalate at the (current) pace. It’s a great way to devastate adversary economies, companies, etc,” said Van der Waag-Cowling.
She added that advanced persistent threat groups are monitored by experts, and an emerging trend is that cyber crime syndicates can, and do, trade with governments.
“Most of these cyber criminal groups, in fact, have big transactional relationships with governments, especially in the states in which they reside and where they run their operations from. They are frequently acting as proxy actors on behalf of those states.
“It’s all very mixed up and, in that sense, they are almost mercenary-like activities.”
Privatisation of national security riskVan der Waag-Cowling’s presentation to the audience at the summit focused on the privatisation of national security risk, a concept she said was introduced by Kerryn Martin, former head of the UK’s intelligence and cyber security agency, GCHQ.
Van der Waag-Cowling used an example of how a state-owned enterprise, such as a power utility, could be a significant target for an adversarial nation and shift from a cyber threat to a national security threat.
“That entity has its staff running cyber security for it. If it’s hit, that entity has to respond, but it’s actually a national crisis that unfolds. Something like a blackout of South Africa could result in significant societal instability quite quickly. You’re sitting with a looming national security threat at this point; if it materialises, it’s going to be disastrous on a state level. But the team in charge of fixing the problem is a little team sitting inside a semi-private entity… so you’re looking at civilian teams working in commerce or industry, that are up against state-backed strategic aligned actors.”
Van der Waag-Cowling offered some advice: to invest in local physical technology infrastructure, to diversify the technology stacks and try to encourage the local tech industry to develop as much local technology as possible – especially on the application layer.
“When we talk about sovereign capabilities, there I see a role for cyber security development in terms of hardening our local systems with our own sovereign capabilities on top of those.”
Attacks on global comms
Dr Bianca Lins, Space Department, Office for Communications, Liechtenstein, spoke about cyber security and global space assets.
She stressed that satellites play a crucial role in society, from enabling communications and financial transactions to aviation and GPS.
“Without satellites, society would come to a standstill,” said Lins, who referenced an example of how space assets have previously been targeted to gain advantage.
She said in 2022, when conflict between Russia and Ukraine erupted, it did not begin with a physical invasion – it began with a cyber attack on a communication satellite system and network.
Lins added that the space sector is no different from any other in terms of threats. However, within the current state of geopolitics, threat actors are picked by a regime to gain advantage in conflict.
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