Joining the podcast this week is Stefan Soesanto, Senior Researcher in the Cyberdefense Project with the Risk and Resilience Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. He recently authored the excellent research report "IT Army of Ukraine" that examined in detail how it was stood up out of necessity for what many have called the 'first cyberwar'. Yet for an IT army that is neither truly military or civilian and largely operating in the grey, how do you manage a globally dispersed, largely volunteer 'cyber army' more than 300k strong? Stefan provides insights from his extensive research – the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive analysis of the IT Army's structure, tasking and ecosystem. It's a fascinating discussion that also raises many questions on the implications ahead such as, can a cyberwar ever truly end? Be sure to read Stefan's research report to learn more: https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/Cyber-Reports-2022-06-IT-Army-of-Ukraine.pdf

Stefan Soesanto, Senior Researcher Cyberdefense Program at Center for Security Studies

Stefan Soesanto is a Senior Researcher in the Cyberdefense Project with the Risk and Resilience Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. Prior to joining CSS, he was the Cybersecurity & Defense Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and a non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS. At ECFR, he designed and held cyber wargame exercises in cooperation with Microsoft, and organized a closed Cybersecurity and Defense conference in Odense together with the Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark and the Office of the Danish Tech Ambassador. Stefan also served as a Research Assistant at RAND's Brussels office, co-authoring reports for the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the European Network Information Security Agency (ENISA), and Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice. Stefan holds an MA from Yonsei University (South Korea) with a focus on security policies, and international law, and a BA from the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) in political science and Japanese.

For links and resources discussed in this episode, please visit our show notes at https://www.forcepoint.com/govpodcast/e196