Consciência situacional como ferramenta estratégica da defesa cibernética

Abstract

The technological growth of the last decades has changed the way many sectors of society and the state carry out their respective activities. The defense sector is part of this framework due to its essentially technological nature. With these changes, discussions began about phenomena known as ‘cyberspace’, ‘cyber power’, and ‘cyber domain’. Because cyberspace permeates and can even influence the other operational domains (sea, land, air, and space), having the right knowledge of cyberspace – both one’s own and that of one’s adversaries – has become a competitive advantage in interstate conflicts. This knowledge is called situational awareness, a concept conceived in the 1980's by Mica Endsley, then Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force, and which can be defined as the ability to perceive and understand activities in a given time and space and to predict the future evolution of the situation. This concept can be unfolded in the cyber domain, giving rise to the socalled cyber situational awareness, which generally means the full knowledge of the actions occurring in the cyber space of interest. Thus, this article aims to elucidate the strategic role of cyber situational awareness, identifying the theories and models of its emerging concept and, subsequently, its developments in military strategy.