Identifying Key Relationships between Nation-State Cyberattacks and Geopolitical and Economic Factors: A Model

Nation-state cyberattacks, and particularly Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), have rocketed in the last years. Their use may be aligned with nation-state geopolitical economic (GPE) interests, which are key for underlying international relations (IRs). However, interdependency between APTs GPE (and thus IRs) has not been characterized yet it could a steppingstone an enhanced cyberthreat intelligence (CTI). To address this limitation, set of analytic models proposed work. They built considering 234M events 306 malicious software tools linked to 13 groups 7 countries 2000 2019. Models show substantial support launched received cyberattacks factors most countries. Moreover, strategic issues motivator when launching APTs. Therefore, from CTI perspective, our results that there is likely cause-effect relationship IRs (particularly relevant indicators)