# Cyber War **Cyber War** refers to state-sponsored offensive operations conducted through digital networks — hacking critical infrastructure, stealing intelligence, disrupting communications, and deploying malware as instruments of geopolitical power. Unlike conventional warfare, cyber operations blur the line between espionage, sabotage, and combat, and attribution is often deliberately ambiguous. Major state actors include [[Russia]] (election interference, SolarWinds, NotPetya), [[China]] (intellectual property theft, government database breaches, telecom infiltration), and [[Iran]] (financial sector attacks, infrastructure probing). The concept gained public prominence with the Stuxnet worm's destruction of Iranian nuclear centrifuges, demonstrating that code could produce physical damage previously requiring kinetic weapons. Cyber war intersects with the [[Surveillance State]] domestically, as defensive cybersecurity programs often expand government monitoring capabilities, and with [[Disinformation]] campaigns that weaponize social media as a theater of information warfare. ## See also - [[Cybersecurity]] — defending networks and infrastructure, and the politics of who is responsible