Intelligence agencies in cyberspace: Adapting the intelligence cycle to cyber threats and opportunities

Abstract

Intelligence has grown and changed dramatically over the past hundred years with the advent of cyberspace. This thesis will begin by examining how the intelligence cycle has adapted to accommodate cyber threats and opportunities, before conducting three national case studies examining the organisational changes in the signals intelligence agencies in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. It will utilise the analysis of how the intelligence cycle and States have grown to accommodate cyber phenomenon and will conduct two case studies on the recent events concerning Huawei and the hacking of the 2016 US Election. Through this, this thesis will ultimately show that one of the main responses to cyber by intelligence agencies has been increased social engagement, through interaction with the general public in a familiar cyber environment, such as Twitter, in an endeavour to combat the rise in cyber crime by promoting awareness of cyber security issues and ensuring people have the knowledge and means to keep themselves safe in cyber space. This has also involved the monitoring and combatting of extremist propaganda material disseminated online for the purposes of promoting extremist ideologies and indoctrinating vulnerable people.