Dr. Tobias Burgers, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Studies, Fulbright University, Vietnam, and CCRC Fellow, Cyber Civilization Research Center, Keio University, Japan

Observing cyber conflict dynamics, we notice how (state) cyber actors are increasingly targeting critical civilian infrastructures (Bateman, 2022; Brooks, 2023; CISA, n.n; CSIS, 2023; Perlroth, 2023; Pollard, 2024). By targeting these critical civilian infrastructures, we observe how this type of "below the threshold" cyber conflict further constitutes a blurring of the civilian and military domain, with the impact of cyber-attacks now increasingly noticeable among civilian actors. We refer to these attacks as society-centric cyber conflict (S3C). This is part of a more significant development in which the civilian domain is becoming increasingly part of the military conflict domain (Perlroth, 2023). To paraphrase Zac Rogers (2019), "Populations, not soldiers, are now on the front lines."

If populations are becoming part of cyber conflict, the frontline even, it seems imperative to understand what Levite and Shimshoni (2018) call the social dimension and how its behavior and role shape governmental responses to threats. This is in particular the case in democracies: Kreps and Schneider (2019) argue that "Democratic governance relies on support from the polity" and that "leaders, whose electoral and policy fortunes are intertwined with public attitudes, have incentives to heed those preferences" […] of the public (Kreps & Schneider, 2019).

Despite the importance of such, there is limited understanding of how societies could react to such cyber-attacks and how it would influence government reactions to them (Rovner, 2021). Indeed, Kreps and Schneider (2019) argue that "the literature on public opinion and foreign policy has not yet engaged the new domain of cyber conflict." Even to the extent research is available, their utility so far has been limited (Perlroth, 2023). This paper, through the sharing of its findings of an earlier conducted survey in the East Asia, seeks to contribute limiting this knowledge gap, and contribute to the debate on populations' (political) role in cyber conflict.