Public Opinion and Cyberterrorism.

Area of Science:

• Cybersecurity and International Relations
• Public Opinion Studies
• Political Science

Background:

• Growing research in cyber-conflict, public opinion, and international security faces conceptual ambiguity.
• The label "cyberterrorism" has significant implications for counterterrorism powers and public threat perception.
• Public opinion's role in defining cyber threats is often overlooked amidst definitional disputes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a framework for understanding public classification of cyberattacks as cyberterrorism.
• To empirically test how attributes of cyberattacks influence public perception of them as terrorism.
• To examine cross-national public opinion on cyberterrorism in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel.

Main Methods:

• A ratings-based conjoint experiment involving 21,238 observations across three countries.
• Development of a typological framework to identify drivers of cyberterrorism classification.
• Comparative analysis of public perceptions of cyberattacks based on varying attributes.

Main Results:

• The public does not label attacks by unknown actors or hacker collectives as cyberterrorism.
• Attacks disseminating sensitive data are classified as terrorism more readily than physical attacks.
• Uniform public perspectives across the US, UK, and Israel challenge existing international relations scholarship.

Conclusions:

• Establishes a conceptual baseline for future research on cyberterrorism and public opinion.
• Highlights the significant role of data dissemination as a factor in public perception of cyberterrorism.
• Demonstrates surprising cross-national consensus on cyberterrorism definitions, challenging elite-driven foreign policy theories.