Joe Devanny

Latest News Picks - Elections watchdog: Three years to recover from hack - BBC Sounds Chinese cyber spies targeted the Electoral Commission, accessing UK voters' details.

Exclusive: The UK's elections watchdog says it's taken three years and at least a quarter of a million pounds to fully recover from a hack that saw the private details of 40m voters accessed by Chinese cyber spies. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

RUSI @rusi.bsky.social invited experts to discuss strengthening UK cyber defences ahead of the new cyber strategy.

Dr @joedevanny.bsky.social emphasises doing more with existing resources through strategic collaboration across government, industry & international partners.

🔗Read: bit.ly/423GwQT

Dr Joe Devanny (@joedevanny.bsky.social) explains that "using #foreignfighters is a way for #Russia to increase numbers while mitigating the domestic costs of the war."

However, he adds that many have been recruited through coercion and false promises.

🔗Read more: bit.ly/4mR1eeL

#UkraineWar

How can #disinformation shape public perception?

A report claiming Russia captured UK operatives was false. The image was AI-generated; the individuals don’t exist.

"Disinformation doesn't need to be sophisticated to have an impact." - Dr @joedevanny.bsky.social.

Read more:
🔗 bit.ly/4mFOdEQ

A Catholic AI app promises answers for the faithful. Can it succeed? It’s like ChatGPT for Catholicism, but the only sources for this large language model are 27,000 documents connected to the church.

Another interesting @washingtonpost.com tech story from this weekend, this time a Catholic chatbot. www.washingtonpost.com/religion/202...

A very nostalgic read for people of a certain age, symbolising how the internet changed media consumption incredibly quickly.

💭 In this commentary for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dr Joe Devanny considers how effectively international efforts are improving global cyber diplomacy 👇

🔗 bit.ly/3ISa9xS

#CyberDiplomacy #DigitalDiplomacy

@carnegieendowment.org @joedevanny.bsky.social

Putin could attack Europe within three years, warns senior Nato official Russia may look to launch an assault on a European country far sooner than expected, one of Britain's most experienced military figures has warned

Is Putin preparing to challenge Europe within three years?

Dr @joedevanny.bsky.social highlights the deterrent effect of NATO, stating: "There is a difference between Putin being “ready” to use military force against Nato and his actually deciding to do it".

Read more:
bit.ly/3ZXE9Os

Cyber and the Strategic Defence Review: All Pervasive But Light on Details The SDR outlines a series of sensible steps to improve the coherence of defence in the cyber domain. But it leaves a lot of details to be developed in implementation, particularly about how the UK sho...

The SDR outlines sensible steps to improve defence in the cyber domain. But it leaves details to be developed, particularly about how the UK should operate in cyberspace, writes @joedevanny.bsky.social.

London was looking nice today from atop Bush House, for the @warstudieskcl.bsky.social undergraduate open day.

The Omagh Bombing Inquiry faces very difficult historical challenges | Institute for Government The Omagh Inquiry must make judgments about events of a quarter century ago.

Dr @joedevanny.bsky.social explores the complex challenges facing the Omagh Bombing Inquiry:

“There is huge expectation on the Inquiry, but it faces the very difficult task of making contextually complex, historical judgements."

@instituteforgov.bsky.social

Learn more:
bit.ly/4lG3h5M

UK election interference threat grows after Trump's cyber defence cuts Security experts warn that US cuts to elite cyber security units mean joint operations to protect elections and politicians will be jeopardised

UK election interference threat grows after Trump's cyber defence cuts | Alongside others, I spoke to @richardholmes.bsky.social for this @theipaper.com article, inews.co.uk/news/uk-elec...

@tonycomer.bsky.social

The Omagh Bombing Inquiry faces very difficult historical challenges | Institute for Government The Omagh Inquiry must make judgments about events of a quarter century ago.

There is huge expectation on the Omagh Bombing Inquiry but it faces a very difficult task of contextually complex, historical judgement.

Read our latest guest comment from @joedevanny.bsky.social www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/omag...

As spyware market continues to expand, diplomatic Pall Mall Process hits a pivot point The Pall Mall Process — a diplomatic initiative designed to reform the commercial spyware and hacking market — has added more nations as it confronts an industry that is more complex than ever.

So it turns out a delegate from the U.S. National Security Council managed to fluster quite a few European counterparts by suggesting the U.S. might take lethal action against irresponsible spyware companies during the Pall Mall Process conference in Paris last week...

📺South Africa, like other middle ground nations, must navigate the differences in how democratic and authoritarian countries want to regulate the internet. What are its global cybersecurity policies, and what's unique about its cyber statecraft? Full video on our website: bit.ly/4iYzweH

One striking thing in memoirs from Trump 1.0 is how destabilised the admin was by vying for influence. Specifics may be surprising, but the broader trend isn’t. Which isn’t to say this trend is good. Difficult to see how any admin would benefit from this disorder.

🚨We are thrilled to share a new paper on India’s Cyber Statecraft by #EISS Technology Coordinator @apb-laudrain.bsky.social & @joedevanny.bsky.social for @carnegieendowment.org

The paper is part of EPSRC-Dstl Cyber Statecraft Proj

🔗 Read the full text here: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

In a new paper with @joedevanny.bsky.social for @lawfare.bsky.social, we use the "Pacific Rim" campaign by @sophossecurity.bsky.social as an opportunity to further the understanding of norms of responsible behavior in cyberspace and counter-cyber operations (CCO)/active cyber defense (ACD).
🧵/5

Sophos, a developer of endpoint protection software, recently disclosed its active cyber defense campaign, Pacific Rim. Michael Genkin and @joedevanny.bsky.social explore why the campaign was effective and what lessons it has for responding to threat actors in the future.

Allies and cyber operations UK implications of a reported Trump/Russia decision

Allies and cyber operations: UK implications of a reported Trump/Russia decision | A quick post about how decisions in US cyber strategy can affect UK cyber statecraft | joedevanny.substack.com/p/allies-and...

In today’s @kauppalehti.bsky.social, I discuss how access to IT should not be taken for granted.

We need to consider the possibility that access to IT will also be utilized as a tool for great power politics.

@warstudieskcl.bsky.social
@mikaaaltola.bsky.social
@joedevanny.bsky.social

Interesting to think through the decision from Trump’s perspective. Vetoing this deal doesn’t exclude a future deal, so is there reason to think a future deal would likely be worse for the US, or that Starmer’s string of negative hypotheticals would likely occur in the meantime?

Can already recommend this as a cyber diplomacy teaching resource. We discussed Michele Markoff’s chapter today in our @warstudieskcl.bsky.social debate on the evolution of the UN cyber norms process.

Valtteri Vuorisalo Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies

Humbled and excited to be appointed as Visiting Professor @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @warstudieskcl.bsky.social !

Links to LinkedIn video in comments.

@mikaaaltola.bsky.social | @vpkivimaki.bsky.social

www.kcl.ac.uk/people/valtt...

That’s a good point. You would think there would be times when those approaches would be complementary.

This short thread points out really well some of the conceptual historical challenges the Omagh Inquiry faces.

The experience of the following decade obviously changed a lot in how intelligence and law enforcement operated. But that was in the future in the period the Inquiry covers. So the Inquiry has a difficult challenge to think historically, and collect evidence to enable it to make its judgements.

To explore the latter issue, it probably would be necessary for the inquiry to take evidence widely from people involved at the time, to gauge how much of this was known, knowable at the time.

Two different questions strike me: whether different outcomes were reasonable within existing processes/mindsets/organisational cultures, etc., & whether it’s reasonable to have expected people to have overcome some of those barriers at the time.