NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF CYBER RISKS AND ORGANIZED CYBERCRIME

DOI: 10.31673/2415-8089.2025.043810

Abstract

In the context of the digital transformation of national economies,
cyberspace is becoming one of the key dimensions of national security, where financial systems, state
institutions and critical infrastructure are becoming priority targets of organized cybercrime and
hybrid threats. The increasing complexity, stealth and transnational nature of cyberattacks
necessitates the transformation of traditional approaches to security assessment, which are mostly
focused on recording individual incidents and do not take into account the cumulative impact of latent
forms of cyber influence. The aim of the study is to carry out a structural analysis of explicit and
latent cyber threats and assess their impact on the functioning of the financial system, critical
infrastructure and state institutions. The methodological basis is a combination of systemic and
comparative approaches, which allows us to consider cyber risks as elements of a multi-level system
of national security. The paper typifies cyber risks, analyzes the mechanisms of their implementation
and evaluates their interaction with elements of cyber sovereignty and cyber resilience. Special
attention is paid to the role of digital imperatives (cyber sovereignty, cyber resilience and cyber
deterrence) as interconnected subsystems of ensuring national security. According to the results of
the study, the main channels of influence of cybercriminal activity on the financial, infrastructure and
defense sectors are identified, a structural model of the interaction of explicit and latent cyber threats
is formulated and the factors of reducing national cyber resilience are systematized. The cumulative
nature of latent cyber risks and their ability to significantly enhance the consequences of open cyber
attacks, forming cascading violations in the system of public administration and critical
infrastructure are substantiated. The results obtained confirm the feasibility of transitioning from
predominantly proactive approaches to preventive models of state cyber policy, focused on early
detection and neutralization of hidden threats.
Keywords: national security, cyber risks, cyber-attacks, data leakage, intelligent systems.

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