Mastering Cyberpower: Cognitive Sciences and The Human Factor in Civilian and Military Cyber Security

The term cyberpower can be defined as the ability to use cyberspace to create advantages and influence events in other operational environments and across the instruments of power. The ability to control and assure operations in cyberspace has become a central goal for defence forces, economic entities, governmental and non-governmental efforts to secure assets. The constant change and complexity that accompanies digitalisation of all sectors, public and private domains highlights the need for better understanding regarding human factor in safety-critical socio-technical systems. In recent history, technological breakthroughs in aviation, acute medical care and other areas of society provided technological opportunities still facing substantially high levels of human error and the challenge to handle larger amounts of information presented by consistently more complicated and powerful technologies. While expanded digitization and global network coverage connects humans and physical infrastructure to cyberspace and then via this to other physical entities, the resulting novel and unforeseen vulnerabilities define new and higher demands for humans operating in safety-critical socio-technical systems. Cognitive sciences can provide the conceptual framework and scientific tools to mitigate risks and increase human performance in socio-technical systems.

This Research Topic aims to provide contributions from a variety of topics relating to human cognition and behavior in mastering cyberpower. A better understanding of the role of human cognition and behaviour for cyber security on individual and societal levels is urgently needed in order to provide appropriate education for professionals in the field and to ensure successful and safe applications of cyberpower. While behavioral sciences and academic traditions lag behind technological developments, this issue welcomes contributions from all related disciplines such as computer sciences, cognitive sciences, medicine, sociology, and others.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
• Cognitive and neurocognitive determinants of decision-making in cyber operations
• Operationalization of successful decision-making and development of performance measures in military cyber operations
• How cyberpower transforms civilian or military institutions and challenges traditional organizational structures
• Game-theory, counter-intuitive decision-making and behavioral analysis of adversaries
• Digitization of warfare: implications for teaching and training
• Game and simulator training as a means to improve performance in cyber operations
• Psychological preparation for low-probability-high-impact events
• Psychological processes related to successful incident and intrusion detection
• Interpersonal communication and team performance
• Neurocognitive processes in safety-critical socio-technical systems
• Decision making in tactical level cyberspace operations
• Methodology and methods in cyber psychology
• Human behaviour in digital world perspective
• Collective intelligence and the role of teams in cyber operations
• Cyberpower's influence on education and educational institutions
• The role of critical thinking in cyber education