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Haya Schulmann, LOEWE top professor and professor of cyber security, warns against cognitive warfare and calls for a comprehensive cyber defense strategy
As part of a thematic focus on cyber security on tagesschau24, from May 21, 2025, LOEWE top professor, professor for cybersecurity at the Institute of Informatics at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main and ATHENE scientist Prof. Dr. Haya Schulmann classifies the strategic goals and defense options against cyber attacks. Schulmann describes so-called cognitive warfare as the targeted influencing of societies through cyber attacks: Disinformation and sabotage, with the aim of undermining trust in state institutions and thus promoting social division.
She emphasizes that different states pursue their own strategies: On the one hand, there are aggressive disinformation campaigns and information overload to destabilize or long-term, controlled influence via platforms such as TikTok and international institutions. Others, on the other hand, primarily pursue religious-ideological goals or exert political influence through media power and funding.
Schulmann sees these developments as a growing threat to Germany and is therefore calling for a comprehensive revision of the national cyber security strategy. In addition to technical protection, transparency in social media, protection against deepfakes and active cyber defense are also necessary. She warns that despite freedom of expression, coordinated influencing of opinion must be recognized as a threat and stopped.
You can find the interview here: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/tagesschau24/haya-schulmann-goethe-universitaet-frankfurt-zur-abwehr-von-cyberangriffen/tagesschau24/Y3JpZDovL3RhZ2Vzc2NoYXUuZGUvYjVhODMzYjAtMTM3MC00Y2JiLWE5MmItMTM0NjZmNGQwYT