The BBC says the terms “Cyberwar” and “Cyberattack” are used without reasonable definition. More importantly, in the big scheme of disasters, they say not to worry about a high impact severity event.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] study is part of a series considering incidents that could cause global disruption.

While pandemics and financial instability could cause problems, cyber attacks are unlikely to, it says.

Instead, trouble caused by cyber attacks is likely to be localised and short-lived.

Unlike many of those who warn of Cyberwar, the authors of this study (Peter Sommer, LSE and Ian Brown, Oxford) do not seem to have a related book for sale.

You may be wondering whether the OECD has made predictions before, and whether they have been accurate. Twice a year, they publish projections for the world economy. A study in 2007 by the Economics Department, which they call a post-mortem for growth predictions, vaguely suggests an answer:

Regression analysis suggests that both OECD projections and Consensus Economics forecasts add value to naive forecasts

To sum it all up, cyberwar (properly defined) is unlikely but countries will still get value from the careful study of cyberattacks. A cynic might say: The authors are not selling a book to the public; they are selling research to state leaders.