CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS 2012 perhaps in governmental departments, without the users themselves being aware or having knowledge of this, and they are being used for large scale attacks in cyberspace. In addition to the consequences to persons as described above, it is not difficult for problems to be created for nation states themselves. Interference with a nation state’s communications has always been an inextricable part of military conflicts. Nowadays, given that many of an army’s communications systems include computers, some nation states have already developed electronic weapons for attacks in cyberspace that can be used as part of a wider military offensive (or even for terrorist actions if they fall into the wrong hands). In addition to this, any vulnerabilities in the ICT systems of the armed forces could lead to the leak of very sensitive information to unauthorised users. The operations of modern military forces are dependent on ICT to a large extent and a serious cyber attack could have dramatic consequences to the defensive capabilities of a country. The strength, stability and safe operations of a country are now fully dependent on the smooth running of its infrastructures, and as can be seen from the examples mentioned above, cyber attacks cannot be ignored. It is noted that the strategic response (see section 3) and the actions described in this document do not relate to the handling of military issues in network and information security, nor to the handling of related terrorism issues; however, the examples discussed above serve to highlight the level of dependence on the technologies that are discussed in this document that military networks and information have. 13