Claudiu Mihai CODREANU
Abstract
Cyber operations, especially cyberattacks, have emerged to become one of the most significant security threats for state actors in the last decade or so, but they have also become increasingly disruptive for individuals. Moreover, one path generally taken by governments, authoritarian and democratic alike, is trying to enhance cybersecurity at the expense of privacy and anonymity of individuals and groups, begging the question whether cybersecurity and cyberattacks can be studied from a less state-centric perspective, focusing on people. The literature on cybersecurity from the perspective of Critical Security Studies is still rather scarce, and there is a need of more research, a gap which I aim to fill through this paper. Critical International Relations theory emphasizes the societal factors and individuals, looking further than the state. Moreover, Critical Security Studies focus on the security of people, proposing a human-centred approach to security. For this research, I shall start by describing the role of the state in cybersecurity and how Critical Security Studies can relate to cybersecurity. Furthermore, I shall explore the possibility of designing a human-centred cybersecurity endeavour. There is a growing need for changing the focus to the individual, especially because of the nature of current cyberattacks and governments’ responses. Following this, I shall focus the discussion on the relationship between Critical Security Studies and cybersecurity around the WannaCry global ransomware attack, which is regarded as one of the most disruptive cyberattacks in history.
Keywords
■ Critical Security Studies ■ Cyberattacks ■ Cybersecurity ■ Human-centred cybersecurity ■ WannaCry cyberattack
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