Podcast: The Weaponization of Data

2024 #ShareTheMicInCyber Fellow Pavlina Pavlova discusses her research on the Smart Women, Smart Power podcast by Center for Strategic and International Studies. Pavlina discusses the top takeaways of her work, and highlights in particular the gendered impacts of cyberattacks and data weaponization. In her conversation with host Kathleen McInnis, she also highlights how gender has been weaponized by foreign actors and the ripple effects of such targeted attacks:

…as a woman representing a group of people, they try [to make] women withdraw from elections and public places because they then create these negative role models for other women. And if we have spaces like this, we really can't speak about safe online spaces or equal opportunities…There's also a secondary aspect to it…on average, gender disinformation with this type of gendered stereotypes will have more threats, more hate. Not only are we creating more unsafe online spaces, but also unsafe offline spaces where women and their family members are threatened this way.