Blame Games in Cyberspace: How Foreign Cues Shape Public Opinion on Cyber Attribution and Retribution

Conflicting narratives about who is responsible for a cyberattack are often thought to create uncertainty about the aggressor’s identity, which in turn could lead to greater restraint in state responses. Although this argument seems compelling, it has not been thoroughly tested. Building on studies of foreign cues and public opinion, this paper presents results from three survey experiments that investigate whether competing narratives about the identity of a cyber aggressor affect Americans’ confidence in public attribution claims and support for retribution policies. The results show that endorsements from allies significantly boost the public’s confidence in attribution, as well as increase support for unilateral and multilateral retaliation measures. In particular, messages from allies have the strongest impact on Democrats, Independents, and doves. In contrast, disavowals from adversaries generally reduce respondents’ confidence in official accusations and diminish their willingness to back retaliation. Nonetheless, denial effects do not consistently reach conventional statistical significance levels across all experiments. These findings highlight the potential role that both allies and adversaries can play in shaping public opinion and cybersecurity policy through contested public attributions.