With missiles in the sky and malware in the wires, hybrid warfare is no longer speculative. Daphna Canetti, Gal Dor, and Tal Mimran argue the Iran-Israel clash marks a strategic turning point — where democracies must defend minds as fiercely as borders
Hybrid conflict, real time
The Iran-Israel confrontation revealed how war today is not fought only on battlefields. It unfolds across servers, screens, and minds. As rockets fall, cyberattacks strike hospitals, fuel systems, and digital infrastructure. Disinformation destabilises public trust. Hybrid conflict is here — coordinated, multi-domain, and aimed at democratic cohesion.
Iranian-linked groups like Cyber Av3ngers launched digital operations precisely timed alongside physical escalations. Israeli-affiliated actors such as Predatory Sparrow responded in kind, targeting Iranian ports, fuel systems, and financial infrastructure.
As drones struck above, cyberattacks crippled banks and emptied digital wallets — showing that today’s wars are shaped as much by keyboards as by airpower. Hybrid war blurs the line between military aggression and societal manipulation. Malware can paralyse a city as surely as a missile.
Israel and Iran are not alone. Democracies now integrate cyber strategy into their national defence. The 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, which infected over 200,000 systems across 150 countries, showed how far cyber threats can spread, far beyond national borders or battle zones. And as the digital and physical domains converge, democracies must prepare for wars that target not only infrastructure, but also trust, cohesion, and cognitive stability.
The Iran-Israel clash is not an outlier. It is a template for future conflict that targets infrastructure, public trust, and psychological stability, across both physical and cognitive fronts.
The Israel-Iran cyber front
Since the Stuxnet worm sabotaged Iran’s nuclear programme in 2010, cyber has become a permanent fixture in the country’s strategic rivalry.
The current war reveals how far this hybrid doctrine has evolved. Tehran-linked groups like Cyber Av3ngers and ALtahere launched timed, targeted digital strikes to paralyse services, fracture public confidence, and spread fear. In April 2020, Iran reportedly tried to alter chlorine levels in Israeli water systems. Israel is believed to have retaliated by disrupting Iranian port operations. Predatory Sparrow targets IRGC-linked infrastructure, disabling fuel stations, trains, and financial systems in sync with kinetic strikes.
By striking essential services and eroding trust, hybrid warfare tactics collapse the boundary between battlefield and home front
These operations don’t just damage — they destabilise. By striking essential services and eroding trust, they collapse the boundary between battlefield and home front. Civilians become strategic targets. In this reality, defending the state means protecting not just borders, but bandwidth, social cohesion, and democratic cognition.
Hybrid war is no longer an exception; it is the operational norm. It spans conventional and digital domains, targeting infrastructure and institutions. Today’s conflicts are waged through code as much as force, aiming not only to disable systems, but to fracture perception, weaken democratic resolve, and destabilise political life from within.
Hybrid war is accelerating across borders
The Iran-Israel war is not the origin of hybrid warfare, but it is one of its clearest and most recent expressions. What we are witnessing is not a regional anomaly, but a global model — a strategic blueprint tested and refined across multiple theatres.
Hybrid warfare collapses distinctions between military and civilian, wartime and peacetime, deterrence and deception
From Ukraine and Taiwan to Estonia and India, adversaries combine digital disruption with geopolitical confrontation — crippling power grids, silencing media, and targeting civilian life. Russia continues to pair missile strikes with cyberattacks on hospitals and energy grids. China’s Volt Typhoon infiltrates US infrastructure to pre-position for escalation. These campaigns destabilise without invasion, weaponise perception, and blur the line between peace and conflict.
This is the new logic of hybrid war. It collapses distinctions between military and civilian, wartime and peacetime, deterrence and deception. The battlefield is now ambient — surrounding and infiltrating society itself.
Iran and Israel are mirrors of what’s to come.
The human harm from hybrid conflict
Analysts have noted the tactical impact of cyberattacks — on banks, ports, or crypto exchanges. What often receives less attention is the deeper damage within the human psyche. Our research shifts the focus from code to cognition: hybrid war manipulates perception, triggers emotional distress, and corrodes democratic trust. In this form of conflict, fear is not a byproduct — it is a weapon. Civilians are not collateral; they are the front line.
This is the new face of war. Cyberattacks, disinformation, and fear operate in concert with kinetic assaults. Iranian-linked groups such as Cyber Av3ngers time their cyber offensives to moments of physical escalation. Israeli-affiliated actors strike across both domains. The battlefield now includes minds as well as machines.
In hybrid warfare, fear is a weapon — and civilians are on the front line
Our research shows that even non-lethal cyberattacks provoke emotional fallout — fear, rage, anxiety — that destabilise social trust and accelerate political radicalisation. The recent attack on Shamir Medical Center illustrates how easily civilians are drawn into the line of fire. Such reactions erode civil discourse and legal order.
National defence, therefore, must expand. It must include psychological resilience, cognitive integrity, and public trust as core components of strategy. What missiles fail to destroy, malware and mistrust often can.
Policy priorities
The Israel-Iran hybrid war shows why national security must now defend minds, not just borders. Cyber and kinetic attacks work together to erode trust, polarise societies, and weaken democratic resilience. Governments should:
Integrate cyber and conventional tools for coordinated deterrence and response
Invest in psychological resilience: counter disinformation, educate the public, reduce radicalisation
Protect critical civilian systems — from hospitals and emergency alerts to lifeline tools like Israel’s Red Alert
Build international norms to govern state and proxy cyber operations
Train leaders to manage hybrid threats through joint crisis simulations
These are not future threats. They’re happening now, from Tehran to Taiwan. Defending democracy means securing systems and minds alike.
The next war won’t start with a missile. It will start with a breach.