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Dr Adrian Venables

Formerly at Lancaster University

Adrian Venables

Research overview

Adrian Venables CEng CISSP is a PhD student in Politics, Philosophy and Religious Studies studying the relationship between the maritime and cyber environments and is a Research Associate at Security Lancaster.
A former regular and now reservist Royal Naval Communications Officer, he is a selfemployed cyber security consultant.

Current Research

The ability to fully understand the nature and composition of cyberspace and successfully exploit its potential is now regarded as providing an essential contribution to the economic success and prestige of modern networked societies. This dependence has resulted in it being utilised to project national power and influence and is a key component in the establishment and maintenance of international relationships, trade, and security. Although providing both opportunities and threats in terms of UK foreign policy and more broadly in the defence of the nation’s critical national infrastructure, the relationship between the maritime and cyber environments is one that is neither well researched or understood, but is becoming increasingly important. My research examines how the properties of these two environments can be harnessed to project power and influence over a target audience through three research objectives. The first is to investigate the close relationship and interdependence between the maritime and cyber environments within the context of power and security. The second contributes to the first by proposing a novel three-dimensional model of cyberspace that distinguishes between different types of power projection. By drawing on and extending Thomas Rid’s classification of cyber-attacks as falling into one of the three categories of espionage, sabotage and subversion, this model is used to develop a more nuanced and complex appreciation of how power can be projected in maritime cyberspace to reach a target audience. The final objective of my research is to demonstrate that cyberspace does not exhibit universal characteristics, but that its structure, properties, and use may differ at the source and destination of a cyberpower campaign.

 

 

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