Since a long time ago, the concepts of national security and sovereignty have been linked to geographical factors. The development of communication in the last quarter of the twentieth century led to dramatic changes in the concept of sovereignty, particularly with respect to the globalization of communication. There is an absolute control of information given the centrality of the Internet in the daily life.
The development of the concept of national security has been closely related to the age of information technology. The concept of Cyber Sovereignty, which controls the criteria of sovereignty in the information age, has emerged, especially after the threat to cyber security. Advanced countries have formed military leaders specialized in planning to launch electronic wars against their competitors and their strategic adversaries.
The concept of cyber security is not new in the research debates and it is sometimes linked to events and facts related to this area. The concept has recently been discussed by the media after the ransom virus spread globally and caused material losses. According to estimates by Microsoft, the electronic ransom virus attack has hit about 150 countries around the world. This virus controls the files of users, blocks them and then requires them to pay a ransom to regain the ability to access them.
Microsoft has criticized the idea of storing information on the Internet, regardless of the measures followed by countries and institutions in this regard. The company considered that this information is easily accessible, saying that some loopholes in the CIA are exposed to WikiLeaks and that this information has been used by the US National Security Agency and has hurt customers around the world. The company said that the ransom virus attack was an alarm revealing the weakness of measures.
The idea of accessing information networks, stealing data, threatening the service sectors and working to paralyze the movement of economies through electronic attacks has been deliberated intensively by information experts during the last two decades. The development in this sector makes the security of the Internet a hard task.
The healthcare, government and transport sectors in several European countries have been affected by the recent spread of the Ransomware. This fact means that developed countries have to directly face the cyber-threat. For example, the United States of America is the most at risk of the cyber threat in the world, according to CIA officials who consider that the most challenging threat the United States has comes from the cyberspace. This development of threat sources explains the massive increases in the size of the cyber security market, which, according to 2017 statistics, is more than $ 120 billion. This is an increase of about 13 times over the past 13 years.
The figures suggest that the cost of cyber attacks worldwide amounts to 300 billion dollars. According to statistics last year, about 315 million malicious virus and destructive programs were programmed. This threat applies to Arab countries that have made significant progress on the technical level, especially the UAE, which is showing strong interest in the development of cyber security. The Middle East leads the way in this vital sector. About 50% of companies in the UAE were attacked electronically in 2016, and 70% of enterprises in the world are attacked in the first year of their establishment, reflecting the level of electronic risk.
The International Conference on the Criminalization of Electronic Terrorism, held in Abu Dhabi recently under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, is of great relevance. It was an international platform to develop the necessary legislative structures to cope with the development of cybercrime and terrorism in the cyberspace.
International cooperation and coordination is weak in terms of preventing the misuse of the Internet by terrorist organizations. Some terrorist organizations move freely on the Internet, establish safe havens, virtual training camps, polarization, propaganda, promotion and sites for mobilizing, inciting and training the youth to practice violence. There are sites that publish methods of manufacturing explosives, overcoming security protection and dealing with electronic censorship.
The technological development is in parallel with the development of cyber crime and the rise of the cyber threat, which requires continuous monitoring at the technical, legal, procedural, planning, educational and training levels. It is estimated that spending on electronic network security in the GCC countries is expected to reach more than $ 1 billion in 2018.
