Segurança cibernética: uma análise das consequências geradas por ataques hackers dentro do sistema internacional

Abstract

This research aims to establish the relation between cyber attacks and a State’s power, that is, analyze if cyber attacks can alter a State’s status quo within the international system to the point of overcoming its hard power. For such, Kenneth Waltz’s neorealist theory was used in a way to establish a model of the international system, as well as cyber concepts such as cyberspace and cybersecurity so the cyber leveled interaction could be comprehended. From these references, the impact of cyber attacks were analyzed considering three cases, the estonian attack in 2007, the iranian attack in 2010, and the most recent cyber attack in Costa Rica, which happened in 2022. This analysis aimed to understand the damage extension of the presented cyber attacks and therefore, if these damages can modify the affected States status.Therewith, the hypothesis of this research could be raised, and that is, a State’s status cannot be altered by cyber attacks, but only through hard power. Thus, to carry out this research, the chosen methodology was qualitative, so the knowledge about hackers could be deepened. Also, the character of this research was exploratory, in which seeked to establish familiarity with the presented problematic, as well as setting hypotheses. Based on the problematic and methodology established before, this research confirmed the hypothesis, and therefore, the obtained results show that cyber attacks are not capable of surpassing the three analyzed State’s hard power, nor presented effective risks for these State’s territorial sovereignty