The Threat of Cyberattack in East Asia

As businesses rely, in most countries, increasingly on the knowledge-based and value-added components of their offerings to secure suitable demand, the pressure on their internal infrastructure to maintain security has intensified. The range of potential adversaries continues to increase as commercial opportunities from cyber-attacks on their connectivity networks increases in both scope and scale. This paper considers the types of cyber-attacks that are being faced by organizations across East Asia and places these in the context of the political-economy of contemporary intellectual property rights. It is argued that multiplying risks threaten to overwhelm those organizations not prepared to take the issue seriously and to respond to those threats with appropriate rigor. Some implications for future practice are also derived from the analysis. Keywords: Cyber attack, threat, political economy