Operationalizing cyber conflict escalation: A reproducible measurement framework bridging technical and geopolitical evidence

Outlet Title

Computers & Security

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 8-2026

Abstract

Cyber conflict “escalation” is widely discussed but rarely measured with transparent, reproducible rules. Existing empirical work often proxies escalation with incident counts, severity, disruption, or broad strategic-competition narratives, limiting comparability under contested attribution and uneven public evidence. We introduce a campaign-level measurement framework that combines: (1) an operational definition with explicit boundary conditions, (2) a two-stage protocol separating conflict-eligibility screening from escalation labeling, (3) a deterministic four-anchor rule capturing operational impact (CR1), state or proxy alignment (CR2), bounded crisis linkage (CR3), and sustained campaign behavior (CR4), and (4) an auditable evidence-log schema with source hierarchy, confidence annotations, and false-flag safeguards. We apply the framework to 54 publicly documented campaigns from 2007–2025 using independent double-coding and structured adjudication. Reliability is strong for conflict eligibility (Cohen’s k=0.813; N=54) and very high for escalation labels on cases evaluated by both coders (Cohen’s k=0.948; Krippendorff’s alpha=0.948; N=47). After adjudication, 33 cases are labeled escalatory, 15 conflict-eligible but non-escalatory, and 6 ineligible/NA. We show that results are robust to reasonable threshold and source-variance checks, while explaining why the framework identifies more sub-armed-conflict campaign-level escalation than literature focused on militarized crisis or armed conflict. The article validates a reproducible measurement layer and discusses how it can support escalation-aware monitoring workflows that combine technical and geopolitical evidence under human review.

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