Cyberwarfare
use of technological force within cyberspace
Cyberwarfare is the use of cyberattacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to traditional warfare. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation, or economic warfare.
Many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, India, and North Korea, have active cyber capabilities for offensive and defensive operations. As states explore the use of cyber operations and combine capabilities, the likelihood of physical confrontation and violence playing out as a result of, or part of, a cyber operation is increased. However, meeting the scale and protracted nature of war is unlikely, thus ambiguity remains.
There has been significant debate among experts regarding the definition of cyberwarfare, and even if such a thing exists. One view is that the term is a misnomer, since no cyberattack to date could be described as a war. An alternative view is that it is a suitable label for cyberattacks that cause physical damage to people and objects in the real world.
The first instance of kinetic military action used in response to a cyberattack resulting in the loss of human life was observed on 5 May 2019, when the Israel Defense Forces targeted and destroyed a building associated with an ongoing cyberattack.
Definition
There is ongoing debate over how cyberwarfare should be defined and no absolute definition is widely agreed upon.
“Cyberwarfare” enters the record as use of technological force within cyberspace. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cyberwarfare, technological and force can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q849340. The Library of Congress control number is sh2013000988. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cyberwarfare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.