Julia Voo
Asia-Pacific countries are facing increasing numbers of state-backed hacking operations serving geopolitical and economic purposes. They are also getting better at conducting them. Domestic and foreign-policy ambitions are manifesting in the information space, where state-linked actors are contesting state adversaries, political opponents and world views both overtly, through activities such as defacement (hacking a target website and replacing its content with the hackers’ own message), and covertly, via disinformation operations. While basic cyber best practice is still out of reach for the least cyber-capable states, a couple of regional states could be considered amongst the most cyber capable globally. Forging a greater range of international partnerships between governments and industry is likely to boost the region’s resilience in cyberspace. Political will and geopolitical alignments will likely shape how that unfolds.
Cyber threats to and from the Asia-PacificThe physical layer of cyberspace, which includes submarine cables and their landing points, is a target for disruption during conflict, grey-zone warfare and intelligence gathering. The Asia-Pacific’s connectivity to the rest of the world is dependent on these cables, which run across congested global shipping lanes as well as the contested waters of the South China Sea. There has been notable disruption to cables in the region. For example, Taiwan’s Matsu Island submarine cables have been damaged repeatedly since 2021, including by Chinese shipping vessels and cargo ships.
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