Hybrid-cyber threats are dangerous because of their complexity: very often, cyber-attacks are accompanied by an information component, which is aimed at achieving certain objectives, such as misleading the public or making them believe certain things that are favorable to the state launching the attack.

The cyber security experts and professionals, Professor Dr. Darius Štitilis and Associate Professor Marius Laurinaitis from Mykolas Romeris University (MRU), together with Professor Matthew Warren, the Director of the Cyber Security Center at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Adelaide, Australia, are sharing their insights at the three-day Intelligence 2023 conference organized by the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers (AIPIO). They are discussing the new generation hybrid threats, the necessity to expand the application of the hybrid threat model developed within the European Union (EU) beyond its borders to other continents.

In today's geopolitical context, one of the largest and most aggressive generators of hybrid and cyber-attacks is Russia, along with its supporting states. They use hybrid-cyber-attacks not only in direct military actions but also in conflicts against states that support their adversaries. In this case, Lithuania stands out as one of the most active supporters of Ukraine.

According to researchers from MRU, Lithuania, together with Poland, Latvia, and Estonia, precisely understands the measures required to resist and counteract hybrid-cyber-attacks. On the other hand, there are still a number of countries that do not adequately appreciate the danger of hybrid-cyber-attacks, because they view them too narrowly, without paying attention to the information part or considering the attacks and their consequences in a comprehensive manner.

"It is necessary to consider hybrid-cyber-attacks as a single phenomenon and to take complex preventive measures to prevent them, including public education on how to recognize the manifestations of these attacks," says Prof. Dr. Darius Štitilis, Dean of the MRU Faculty of Public Governance and Business and head of the study programme of Cybersecurity management, stressing that it is essential to extend the EU's model of hybrid threats to other continents, such as Australia, which is facing a Chinese-led hybrid attack.

In 2022, the MRU Faculty of Public Governance and Business, together with the RMIT Cyber Security Research and Innovation Centre, established the Australian-Lithuanian Cyber Research Network (ALCRN) to jointly pool their knowledge and scientific potential to conduct research on hybrid threats and assess their impact on societies and institutions in Lithuania and/or Australia.