Software Engineering Institute

This study examines the relationship between cyber and kinetic events through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, over a 10-year span of data that began on January 1, 2004, and completed on December 31, 2013. Due to the relative newness of the cyber environment, a five-year interval was also examined for the cyber behavior. This was due primarily to the significant increase in cyber activity beginning at year 2010.

This study is structured to allow for the examination of actors involved in cyber events (specifically web defacements) where those events relate to kinetic activities, by using culture as the framework in which the events are discussed. This study was designed to profile cyber actors, and to examine the time interval between cyber and kinetic events in order to gain greater insights into nation-state cyber responses to kinetic events. The study results present findings about the relationships of cultural values and the cyber and kinetic actions that have been observed and recorded.