“Given the tone of cyber security debate and coverage in the news media, the assumption would be that we have entered an era of constant cyber warfare. Yet, the idea that cyber conflict is prevalent and normal flies against all evidence when the macro perspective of cyber events is taken into account. On the contrary, there is a developing cyber norm against the use of severe cyber tactics as directed by states against each other. Perception is not reality, and we cannot take the frequent news reports and fears exhibited by policy-makers as evidence that we have entered an era of perpetual cyber conflict. What we witness is cyber espionage and probes, not cyber warfare or coercion. The system has stabilized into a process of limited acceptable uses of cyber technology in international affairs prohibiting the crossing of any line that might be considered a dangerous use of force, or actions that might provoke such a response. We will explore these themes through the use of data to demonstrate the lack of severe cyber incidents, the lack of responses to cyber actions, and the notion that cyber actions represent the beginnings of a taboo that is not to be broken.”
