Cognitive warfare: Red Cross warns of dangers (#11)

00:00:00: Swiss Cyber Security Days Talk, powered by Handels-Citon.

00:00:10: Welcome to this episode of the Swiss Cyber Security Days Talk, recorded live here in Bern.

00:00:17: My name is Sandra Casalini and today I'm joined by Mauro Vignanti,

00:00:21: expert on cognitive warfare at the International Red Cross.

00:00:25: In this episode we will talk about cognitive warfare in 2025

00:00:29: and on and offline radicalization.

00:00:32: Welcome to our podcast lounge, Mauro Vignanti. It is a pleasure to have you.

00:00:37: Thank you, Sandra. Thank you very much.

00:00:39: When we talk about threats, especially cyber and cybersecurity, as we do today,

00:00:44: we mostly speak about technologies like AI.

00:00:47: The most obvious and one of the most dangerous threats rarely comes to our minds,

00:00:52: the Internet itself, social media especially.

00:00:55: Is this an invisible danger, even though we are surrounded by it every day?

00:01:00: So this is a good question. Let's think about the fact that an adult in our connected societies

00:01:06: spend more or less 7 to 8 hours connected, so receiving information from the connected information

00:01:14: that you receive. And then another number that is very interesting,

00:01:18: 20% of our decisions are generated through recommended systems.

00:01:22: So when you are navigating with your car, when you're choosing your music, choosing the food,

00:01:26: so this is recommendation. So it means that all those factors are influencing our capability,

00:01:32: our condition logically. But cognitive warfare, as an umbrella term, is not just information influence

00:01:39: or cyber or information operation, psychological operation, but it's also taking into account

00:01:45: several other techniques that could be included in neuroscience and neuro technologies,

00:01:50: biotechnologies that saw a very fast development in the last 40, 50 years.

00:01:56: And recently, mainly I'm thinking about the neuro technologies that can read the brain waves

00:02:02: and can influence all the brain waves. So this is the future of controlling or trying to manipulate

00:02:08: the cognition of people.

00:02:11: Cognitive warfare is nothing new. Thinking about the world wars, Vietnam,

00:02:16: what has changed besides the fact that a lot of more people can be reached these days?

00:02:21: So there are actually three main developments that we see.

00:02:26: So first one is the development of the society. So we see an increase in importance of human networks.

00:02:31: So people are no more relying on a vertical state apparatus, but they can, through ICT technologies,

00:02:40: connect to other pox that have the same mindset and perspective.

00:02:47: This one challenge for the classical organization of a society, which has the physical control

00:02:54: of the population, but this is going far and no more being only physical.

00:03:00: Then we have logically the increased amount of ICT technologies.

00:03:06: So we have the Internet 10 years after. So 97 came in Switzerland, 2007, 10 years after we have the first iPhone.

00:03:13: So always connected, always on. 10 years after the iPhone, we have the first algorithm like GPT

00:03:21: that are coming in the market. So they are changing another time the situation.

00:03:26: So we have this increase of capabilities. And then at the third topic, we have, as I said before,

00:03:31: neuroscience and other technologies that are now very prominent. So that said, we are in a very peculiar situation

00:03:39: where all those capabilities, technologies and evolution are now challenging.

00:03:44: And we have to think about cognitive warfare, not just as information operation,

00:03:51: something broader than this term.

00:03:54: When we talk about radicalization, studies regarding geodists, of course there are more

00:04:00: radicalizations than that, but it's what the studies mostly concentrate on, show that

00:04:06: the biggest part of them are still radicalized offline, and that those show a significantly

00:04:11: higher likelihood of attacking compared to those radicalized online.

00:04:15: So why do you consider online radicalization such a big problem?

00:04:20: So the radicalization of beliefs of people is logically easier to do than changing the

00:04:27: belief of the people.

00:04:28: And I explain myself, so if someone already has a tend to think in some perspective, increasing

00:04:38: the radicalization is easier with messages, and those messages are, as I said before,

00:04:44: mainly today online.

00:04:46: The opposite is more difficult to change the mind of a person.

00:04:50: It's way difficult because we have to create a state of cognitive dissonance, which is

00:04:55: difficult to create in a person.

00:04:57: So changing the belief of a person to see a perspective from another side is more challenging.

00:05:03: Radicalizing is easier.

00:05:05: So that's why we see a more effective operation, radicalizing a person than the opposite in

00:05:11: changing the perspective of the people.

00:05:14: So in most cases, it's probably a combination of both of the two things on and offline.

00:05:21: Unfortunately, the open and digitalized information environments of democracies make them structurally

00:05:27: more vulnerable to the practices of cognitive warfare.

00:05:31: What do you think can be done without interfering with democratic structures?

00:05:36: So it's more than the democratic.

00:05:40: Now we have structured the networks, or the protocols, the sharing of information, the

00:05:45: access to other resources.

00:05:47: There are limitations, and some states are trying to limit this by limiting the impact

00:05:53: of certain technology or the reach of certain capabilities on their physical territory,

00:05:59: but this is limited in capacity.

00:06:02: What we've seen, as I said before, is these networks of humans that are done through the

00:06:08: ICD technologies, and that's the challenge for everyone, not just for democracy, but

00:06:15: also for states that are controlling better their infrastructure or more limiting the access

00:06:23: to external opinion or external data.

00:06:26: So it's a challenge for every country, especially for democracy, that are open in this regard.

00:06:33: What can an organization like the International Red Cross do regarding such things preventing?

00:06:41: So the main goal of the ICRC is logically the impact on civilians and the protection

00:06:47: of civilians in armed conflict and other situations of violence, extreme violence.

00:06:52: So our goal is to observe what is happening, how these capabilities are being deployed

00:06:59: on armed conflict, and see if there is the respect of international humanitarian law,

00:07:03: and in case intervene to government and non-state actors to see if there is a possibility to

00:07:10: be more compliant with the international humanitarian law.

00:07:14: Great.

00:07:15: Thank you very much, Mauri Vignati, for these insights.

00:07:18: It's clear that social media has not only become a part of our everyday lives, but unfortunately

00:07:23: also of today's cognitive warfare.

00:07:26: It is up to each one of us to remain vigilant.

00:07:30: And of course a big thank you to our audience for tuning in.

00:07:33: If you enjoyed the discussion, don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you next time.

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