Cybersecurity Policy in the EU and South Korea from Consultation to Action: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives

305 Pages·2022·6.672 MB·English

by  Gertjan Boulet, Michael Reiterer, Ramon Pacheco Pardo

NEW SECURITY CHALLENGES
SERIES EDITOR: GEORGE CHRISTOU
Cybersecurity Policy in the EU
and South Korea from
Consultation to Action
Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives
Edited by
Gertjan Boulet · Michael Reiterer
Ramon Pacheco Pardo
Foreword by Herman Van Rompuy
New Security Challenges
Series Editor
George Christou
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
The last decade has demonstrated that threats to security vary greatly in
their causes and manifestations and that they invite interest and demand
responses from the social sciences, civil society, and a very broad policy
community. In the past, the avoidance of war was the primary objective,
but with the end of the Cold War the retention of military defence as the
centrepiece of international security agenda became untenable. There has
been, therefore, a significant shift in emphasis away from traditional
approaches to security to a new agenda that talks of the softer side of secu-
rity, in terms of human security, economic security, and environmental
security. The topical New Security Challenges series reflects this pressing
political and research agenda.
* * *
For an informal discussion for a book in the series, please contact the series
editor George Christou ([email protected]), or Palgrave editor
Alina Yurova ([email protected]).
This book series is indexed by Scopus.
Gertjan Boulet
Michael Reiterer • Ramon Pacheco Pardo
Editors
Cybersecurity Policy
in the EU and South
Korea from
Consultation to
Action
Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives
Editors
Gertjan Boulet Michael Reiterer
Korea University Centre for Security, Diplomacy &
Seoul, South Korea Strategy (CSDS)
Brussels School of Governance
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
(BSoG-VUB)
Brussels, Belgium
Brussels, Belgium
Ramon Pacheco Pardo
King’s College
London, UK
ISSN 2731-0329 ISSN 2731-0337 (electronic)
New Security Challenges
ISBN 978-3-031-08383-9 ISBN 978-3-031-08384-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08384-6
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F
oreword
When invited to offer some thoughts on the perspectives for cybersecurity
cooperation between the European Union and South Korea, I was
reminded of the EU-Korea summit in 2013 in Brussels, where I had with
my Korean counterpart the first substantial discussion of working together
on cyber issues. We welcomed the launch of bilateral cyber policy consul-
tations, and importantly, we agreed to continue joint efforts to maintain a
safe, open and secure cyberspace. Convinced of the necessity to promote
economic and social development by maximising the positive role of ICT
and the Internet, we were also mindful of the projected important role of
cyberspace in fostering and protecting on-line the core values of human
dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for
human rights.
This volume shows that these seeds have borne fruit, even if the tree
they rest on still needs significant care and engagement if it is to continue
to blossom. As is often the case in diplomacy, moving from an exchange of
information and best practices to action remains a challenge. This volume
shows points of direction by identifying common goals and implementa-
tion tools: the means to connect people, to further invest in both com-
mercial applications and a robust international governance framework that
support democracy based on law, norms, rules and values.
Making good use of the internet and the social media has grown in
importance and gained a further boost through covid-19, which pre-
vented travel to a large degree. The Internet became the great connector.
The cyber world gained even more importance, and in parallel the need to
address cybersecurity grew further.
v
vi FoREWoRD
Beyond personal and commercial use, the military dimension of the
Internet is growing. At the beginning of the war of aggression by Russia
against Ukraine, cyber attacks sought to destabilise the country. My col-
league, the former president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude
Juncker, warned in his 2017 State of the Union address: “Cyber-attacks
can be more dangerous to the stability of democracies than guns and
tanks”. Now we witness both—cyber attacks and tanks combined in hybrid
warfare. In response to cyber attacks, armed forces added cyber attack and
cyber defence units. The protection of the ever-growing critical infrastruc-
ture has become an essential aspect of security. Having been the victim of
a cyber attack in my capacity as the president of the European Council in
2012, I know first-hand the importance of securing networks and accounts.
South Korea is one of the most connected societies; it invests in emerg-
ing technologies and related research, and leads in the production of semi-
conductors. South Korea has already successfully cooperated with
European partners in the Horizon 2020 research programme on 5G tech-
nology, which is crucial for communication but also security. This intensi-
fication of cooperation between the EU and South Korea fits very well
into the overall EU policy designed to enhance cooperation with like-
minded partners in the Indo-Pacific region on strategic goals. The EU has
recently intensified its engagement with Asia and the Indo-Pacific through
programmes focusing on connectivity: the Connectivity Strategy with
Asia, the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Global Gateway. A common fea-
ture of all these programmes is to connect people and not only building
physical infrastructure. Enhancing this cooperation and developing 6G
together would add a highly political but also practical dimension to the
strategic partnership of the EU and South Korea.
This also applies to strengthening cooperation in repelling cyber attacks
and using countermeasures. South Korea’s consideration of its bilateral
relations with some countries means that it prefers to join multilateral
responses and sanctions regimes rather than take its own unilateral mea-
sures. In this respect and our common interest, the EU could help to
foster cooperation with neighbouring countries like Japan—I launched
the “EU-Japan Cyber Dialogue” with Prime Minister Abe in 2014. In
order to enhance cybersecurity a global networked approach is necessary
to which a robust cyber diplomacy by the EU would contribute and to
which South Korea could be invited to join.
Cyberspace has gained multidimensional importance in areas like war
and peace, preserving and threatening democratic systems, providing a
FoREWoRD vii
medium for real and fake news, respecting or even defending human
rights. Mark Leonard alerted us to the danger of inaction in his recent
book The Age of Unpeace, How Connectivity Causes Conflict: the Internet,
the ultimate unifier of the global village, should not be allowed to become
the perfect weapon to divide the world.
In short, this is a timely and well-curated volume of work by European
and Asian experts, published at a time when the new administration of
President Yoon Suk-yeol is forming its policies. I hope the new
Administration in Seoul will draw some inspiration from this volume and
continue building a stronger bilateral relationship between the EU and
South Korea in cybersecurity and beyond.
P resident Emeritus European Council Herman Van Rompuy
Minister of State
F
oreword
This volume marks a signature publication in a continued process of coop-
eration with editor Gertjan Boulet: hosting him as a visiting researcher at
Korea University in 2016—initially for a period of six months—planted
the seeds for long-term cooperation to date. This volume in fact has its
roots in an inspiring guest lecture of co-editor Michael Reiterer during
one of Gertjan’s courses at Korea University. As the editors say in the
Introduction, the guest lecture on EU foreign policy in cyberspace led to
a series of workshops bringing together Korean and EU experts from
diverse fields, which we attended in a spirit of strengthening cyber coop-
eration between the EU and South Korea.
Digital technology has become more important than ever in various
areas like smart cities, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence (AI).
However, as being at the edge of emerging technologies grants states a
competitive advantage, cybersecurity has become a matter of national sur-
vival; cyber attacks may cripple the infrastructure of a country, and thus we
talk of the need to protect critical infrastructure. As there are no limits in
time and space for communication and interaction between countries,
international cooperation is the only way to build competitive digital
economies throughout the world and to achieve efficient and practical
cybersecurity. As various chapters in this volume show, the EU and South
Korea already cooperate closely as strategic partners in a wide range of
areas covering economic, trade, political, diplomatic and security sectors,
and with cybersecurity as a prime area for joint actions. As part of the EU’s
Connectivity, Indo-Pacific and Global Gateway strategies, bilateral coop-
eration with South Korea should further advance, and the existing
ix
x FoREWoRD
strategic partnership should be further developed in view of building
highly efficient digital capabilities in the region and addressing challenges
posed by digital transformation, including social and ethical issues.
The EU’s growing weight on the digital economy and leading role in
the regulation of data and AI has inspired South Korea’s digital strategy,
with the GDPR and the necessary adequacy assessment of Korean regula-
tions as a representative example of the EU’s influence. However, more
work has to be done to achieve a truly global, open, free and secure cyber-
space, based on regulations that are proportionate and strike a balance
between government control and freedom.
As cyber threats become more and more sophisticated and complex,
defence becomes difficult with existing security tools. When starting the
illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia conducted a series of cyber
attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine and disseminated fake news to
deceive Ukrainian citizens and the international media. Volunteer hackers
and tech companies worldwide started to defend Ukraine and disrupt
Russia’s digital infrastructure through cyber attacks, actions motivated by
the conviction that international peace must be maintained and that his-
tory should not repeat itself. Such unexpected consequences of the digital
transformation can be expected to intensify in the future and should moti-
vate the international community to develop practical measures to collec-
tively resolve global cyber problems and serve as a catalyst to strengthening
international voluntary measures even without any agreements on the
global level. Strategically, the lesson to draw from Russia’s invasion is to
expand South Korea’s relationships with NATo and EU in a multilateral
perspective, also given the continued cyber attacks from North Korea. A
wide range of sanctions by numerous countries have been imposed on
Russia and Russian politicians after the aggression against Ukraine, orga-
nizations have been denouncing Russia’s illegal acts, the UN General
Assembly reprimanded Russia which was also excluded from the Council
of Europe on March 16, 2022. on the same day, the International Court
of Justice ordered Russia to suspend its military operation in the territory
of Ukraine. These internationally concerted actions suggest that interna-
tional cooperation can prevent and preclude potential or existing threats
in any space including cyberspace. To avoid escalation, international coop-
eration among countries should be sophisticated and coherent.
Cooperation between the EU and South Korea should move in this
direction.