possibilities and challenges in cyberspace
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Cyberspace provides opportunities for innovation, commerce, and societal advancement but also raises significant issues for policymakers in securing cyber vulnerabilities, ensuring privacy and protection of personal data, and considering the use of cyber weapons as a national security asset. Cyber threats pose a broad and deep challenge. Over the past decade, governmental and nonstate hackers have become increasingly sophisticated in their assaults on the cyber systems the nation depends on for essential services, economic prosperity, and security. Such breaches threaten critical infrastructure, intellectual property, privacy of users’ data, sensitive national security information, and government personnel data. Future cyber attacks could threaten the interconnected global economy and raise the prospect of cyber warfare between nation-states. The Internet is also being used for other malign purposes—by criminals to operate their nefarious enterprises and by terrorists to recruit and encourage violent attacks through online propaganda. In this environment, commercial entities, governments, and individuals are just beginning to consider the rules and norms that should govern the relatively new cyber domain.