By Hedelberto López Blanch on September 13, 2026 from Havana
image by Adano
The definition of the concept of information warfare, digital warfare, cyber warfare, or cyberwar refers to the shift of a conflict that uses cyberspace and communication and information technologies as its theater of operations.
U.S. security expert Richard Clarke defines cyberwar as the set of actions carried out by a state to penetrate the computers or networks of another country, with the aim of causing harm or disruption.
According to researcher Gabriela Sandroni, cyberwar adapts to the characteristics of cyberspace, involves states as its primary actors, and is characterized by political motives. It could also be defined as the set of actions carried out to disrupt the enemy’s information and systems, while simultaneously protecting one’s own information from the attacker’s systems.
It has been reported on several occasions that a deep-seated cognitive war is being waged by large American and Western information technology (IT) and information and communication technology (ICT) companies to change minds and distort events in order to portray the oppressors of the people as the “good guys” and the oppressed as the “culprits.” At the same time, they carry out cyberattacks against other countries’ critical infrastructure to create confusion.
The difference between IT and ICT is that the former focuses on the management and processing of data and digital information, while ICT includes the dimension of communication through electronic technologies. Both are essential for businesses.
Among the largest IT companies are: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia, Tesla Samsung, Intel, IBM, and Facebook.
The most important ICT companies are: Canva, Google Analytics, WordPress, SharePoint, Google Meet and Teams, Zoom, WeTransfer, and Google Drive.
Information technologies encompass hardware, software, data, and services that capture, process, and protect information to create value.
Gabriela Sandroni points out that it is more feasible to defeat the enemy by attacking its IT infrastructure than by employing any other type of physical attack. This strategy has been used in various situations, and its common objectives include disrupting services, obtaining information, sabotage, propaganda, and impairing the adversary’s technological capabilities.
Recently, one of the most common attacks has been sending a large number of simultaneous requests to a server, which overwhelm its response capacity and bring it to a standstill; these are known as denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Given its vast networks and complexities, it is difficult to cover all the intricacies of technological disinformation warfare in a single work; as an example, let’s look at the case of Cuba, which is facing a fierce hybrid war.
The website Razones de Cuba explains that “The battlefield of the 21st century is no longer just land, sea, or airspace. It is the human mind. And in this new domain, Cuba faces an extension of the old blockade: a full-spectrum cognitive war, financed and executed from abroad, that seeks to erode national identity, delegitimize institutions, and fracture social consensus.”
It adds that this is a system of unilateral coercive measures that, on the one hand, technologically suffocates the island and, on the other, uses the island’s own digital ecosystem to bombard the population with narratives of despair, chaos, and hatred.
Among the most commonly used tactics are synthetic accounts and the simulation of discontent through bot farms and anonymous profiles that pose as Cubans on the island to project an image of widespread chaos and violence.
Another tactic is the algorithmic amplification of crises by exploiting real situations—such as power outages and shortages—caused by the blockade itself to generate artificial trending topics that promote panic and demobilization.
State-sponsored “gaslighting”—a profound psychological mechanism—has also been employed. When a citizen faces economic hardship as a result of the economic war, they are bombarded with messages telling them that their government is lying to them and that the Revolution has failed. The goal is to make them doubt their own perception of reality.
This war, as I noted earlier, has many facets, and in this regard, the use of such harmful propaganda is a deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognition, and direct behavior to elicit a response that further the propagandist’s desired outcome.
It is a war that, because of its deceptive and harmful nature, requires us all to remain vigilant.