‘Close enough’ – The link between the Syrian Electronic Army and the Bashar al-Assad regime, and implications for the future development of nation-state cyber counter-insurgency strategies

Abstract

The case of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) offers the chance to study a counter response to the cyber activism of the Arab Spring. Research methods featured an adapted method of snowball sampling. The main technical finding of the study placed the SEA within two degrees of separation from a senior politician within the Assad regime. The core conclusion of the paper is the definition of a ‘close enough’ relationship between the SEA and the Assad regime, defined as distant enough to preserve plausible deniability but close enough to ensure the strategic alignment of the SEA to state policy goals.

Keywords

• cyber counter-insurgency, Syria, Assad, proxy force, hacktivism, computer hacking