ABSTRACT
State-to-state engagement in cyberspace is a rapidly developing reality of contemporary international relations (Farwell and Rohozinski, 2012). Policymakers, scholars, and pundits alike express alarmism over the destructive potential of cyber conflict, often likening the severity of the threat to the specter of nuclear warfare. But what do we really know about state to state cyber conflict empirically? Despite growing fears, relatively little empirical research exists systematically examining patterns of cyber conflict. To address this research gap, this article examines historical patterns of publicly known state-sponsored cyberattacks among rival state dyads from 2000 to 2014 to identify the correlates of cyber conflict and to consider their theoretical implications.
