The Invisible War at Your Client's Digital Doorstep

In the past, warfare was fought on battlefields. Today, it's waged in the shadows of cyberspace, often without a single shot fired. This is the realm of grey warfare, a murky blend of cyber operations, disinformation, and economic coercion that blurs the lines between peace and conflict.  

For your client's businesses, it means that the frontlines have shifted. Their organisation's digital infrastructure, their people and their data, are now a potential target in a global contest where adversaries exploit ambiguity and deniability. The implications are profound: operational disruptions, reputational damage, and financial loss, all without clear attribution or recourse. 

Recent events underscore this reality. Cybersecurity experts have warned that various state-affiliated actors may retaliate against perceived adversaries through a variety of cyberattacks, including defacing websites or launching denial-of-service attacks, to avoid provoking a major response. These attacks are not just theoretical; they are happening now, and businesses are caught in the crossfire. 

Understanding Grey Warfare and Its Business Implications

Defining Grey Warfare

Grey warfare encompasses activities that fall between traditional diplomacy and open conflict. These actions are intentionally ambiguous, allowing bad actors to pursue strategic objectives without triggering a conventional military response. Tactics include cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic manipulation, often executed through proxies or anonymous channels. 

The Business Impact

The private sector is increasingly in the crosshairs of grey warfare. Companies control critical infrastructure, hold valuable data, and represent national economic interests, making them attractive targets. Cyberattacks can disrupt operations, erode customer trust, and inflict significant financial damage.

For instance, recent conflicts have significantly escalated into the cyber realm, and all sides have launched covert cyberattacks alongside visible military actions. These attacks have targeted financial institutions, energy providers, utilities, critical infrastructure, government agencies and other sectors, demonstrating the far-reaching implications of grey warfare on businesses.

The U.S. National Terrorism Advisory System for example, warned Sunday of a range of threats to the U.S., including attacks on “poorly secured U.S. networks and Internet-connected devices.” The advisory cites possible low-level cyber attacks, attacks against U.S. networks, threats against government officials and violent extremism as possible risks to citizens and businesses. 

The Role of AI and Emerging Technologies

Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies have become double-edged swords. While they offer efficiency and innovation, they also provide adversaries with tools to conduct more sophisticated and harder-to-detect cyber operations. The use of AI in creating deepfakes, automating attacks, and analyzing vulnerabilities accelerates the pace and scale of grey warfare activities. 

Proactive Measures for Business Leaders

1. Elevate Cybersecurity to a Strategic Priority

Cybersecurity is no longer just an IT issue; it's a strategic business imperative. Board members and executives must be actively involved in understanding and managing cyber risks. Regular briefings, risk assessments, and investment in cybersecurity infrastructure are essential.

Employees are often the first line of defence. Client organisations should implement comprehensive training programs to educate staff about phishing, social engineering, and other common attack vectors. Encourage a culture where cybersecurity is everyone's responsibility.

Client's must engage with industry peers, supply chain partners, government agencies, and cybersecurity organisations to share threat intelligence and best practices. Collective defense mechanisms can enhance resilience and provide early warnings of emerging threats.

Clients must also prepare for the inevitable by developing robust incident response plans. Regularly test these plans through simulations and drills to ensure readiness. Quick and effective responses can mitigate damage and facilitate recovery.

Advanced threat detection tools that leverage AI and machine learning to identify and respond to anomalies in real-time, often enhancing core platform security measures. These technologies can provide a critical edge in detecting sophisticated grey warfare tactics.

Are Your Client's Inboxes Part of Their Security Strategy, or Just a Blind Spot?

Because attackers have already decided they're their weakest link. Email is the number one threat vector for cyber attacks, so here’s what I recommend to shift from exposed to prepared:

1. Treat email as a vector of operational risk, not just something the IT team deals with when someone clicks the wrong thing. This is now a board-level issue.

2. Run live simulations, not technical pen tests. Real-world behavioural drills are crucial. Can your client's staff spot an impersonated internal memo if it looks perfect?

3. Make trust a tier-one asset. Your clients protect revenue, reputation, and IP, but trust underpins all of them. When trust breaks, so does confidence, culture, and control.

4. Get visibility into what’s actually getting through. Their existing platform, whether it’s Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, isn’t designed to detect grey warfare. It’s designed to block known threats, not intelligent deception. If they don’t have a way to see what’s slipping through, they’re already behind.

5. Triple their defences. Relying on one layer of protection is no longer enough. Clients need multiple, specialised layers to catch what traditional tools miss, like MailGuard's specialist AI-powered email filters that detect and stop advanced zero-day threats to keep your client's teams and businesses safe.  

A Final Word

Grey warfare represents a paradigm shift in how conflicts are conducted and how businesses are affected. The blurred lines between state and non-state actors, peace and conflict, and physical and digital realms require a proactive and comprehensive approach to cybersecurity.

As business leaders and IT professionals, we must recognise the evolving threat landscape and adapt accordingly. By prioritising cybersecurity, fostering collaboration, and staying informed, we can build resilience against the subtle yet significant threats posed by grey warfare.

Let's not wait for a crisis to act. The time to strengthen our defences and safeguard our digital frontiers is now.

Keeping Businesses Safe and Secure

Prevention is always better than a cure, and one of the best defences is to encourage businesses to proactively boost their company’s cyber resilience levels to avoid threats landing in inboxes in the first place. The fact that a staggering 94% of malware attacks are delivered by email, makes email an extremely important vector for businesses to fortify.

No one vendor can stop all email threats, so it’s crucial to remind customers that if they are using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, they should also have a third-party email security specialist in place to mitigate their risk. For example, using a specialist AI-powered email threat detection solution like MailGuard.   

For a few dollars per staff member per month, businesses are protected by MailGuard's specialist, zero zero-day email security. Special Ops for when speed matters!  Our real-time zero zero-day, email threat detection amplifies your client’s intelligence, knowledge, security and defence.

MailGuard provides a range of solutions to keep businesses safe, from email filtering to email continuity and archiving solutions. Speak to your clients today to ensure they’re prepared and get in touch with our team to discuss fortifying your client’s cyber resilience.

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