Encouraging New Thinking on Offensive Cyber Operations

15 Sep 2025 11:35 AM

A new initiative from RUSI and the National Cyber Force will form a community of interest in the UK for offensive cyber operations, with rigorous and well-informed debate on issues across government, academia and wider society.

Today RUSI and the UK’s National Cyber Force (NCF) are launching a new initiative to develop a UK community of interest on the subject of offensive cyber operations. The UK Cyber Effects Network is particularly aimed at early career professionals with a view to encouraging new thinking on the theory and practice of offensive cyber.

This is a timely moment to be encouraging new UK-centric thinking on offensive cyber. The last few months have seen the publication of a new Strategic Defence Review and a new National Security Strategy and we are expecting a revision to the UK National Cyber Strategy later this year. A lot of new thinking is going into defence and security issues in the UK, including cyber. And this is all happening against a backdrop of an ever more complex and dangerous international situation and the ever-growing role of technology, both as a threat and opportunity in the security and defence environment.

New thinking on defence, security and technology needs more than ever to be underpinned by a rigorous and well-informed debate on these issues across government, academia and wider society. But in the case of offensive cyber (cyber operations to add, delete or manipulate data on systems or networks to deliver a physical, virtual or cognitive effect) this is not always easy.

Click here for the full press release