Romanian Cyber Security Journal / Fall 2023, No. 2, Vol. 5

The Trench Electronic Warfare – A New Threat to Critical Infrastructures

Sorin TOPOR

---

Abstract

The trench electronic warfare concept comes from the language of fighters on the Ukrainian front and became popular through its promotion by journalists and war correspondents. The paper is based on a semantic and content analysis of this new warfare concept and identifies possible directions of evolution applicable in various moments of modern war. At the same time, the paper highlights those aspects that, in peacetime, can become threats to critical infrastructures. Against these, some measures that can strengthen the strategies for the protection of critical infrastructures against unwanted events are proposed, such as unexpected effects or accidents caused by amateurs with minimal knowledge in the field of electronics, computing and IT. Furthermore, the risk of this concept being applied to combined attacks on critical infrastructure by criminal and terrorist organizations is growing. It is a danger anywhere in the world at this time of numerous social upheavals.

Keywords

Electronic Warfare, Trench Electronic Warfare, critical infrastructure protection, Cyber Security