Grey Zone Warfare Risks to Organisations
Grey zone warfare, while not new, has become a more visible and frequent feature of the operating environment for organisations working across politically contested or strategically sensitive landscapes, following a decade of increasingly tense geopolitical relations between world powers. Grey zone warfare tactics operate in the space between diplomacy and warfare, relying on a range of indirect and direct methods that are publicly deniable, difficult to respond to conventionally, and highly disruptive. In recent years, corporate vulnerabilities related to their cyber, legal, and reputational concerns have been the most frequently targeted. Indeed, businesses are increasingly being singled out, not as collateral damage, but as deliberate instruments and areas of influence in geopolitical contests; whether that’s to weaken adversarial economies, influence foreign policy indirectly, or fracture alliances through market manipulation and reputational sabotage for example.
Case Examples:
Cyber Attacks by Nation-State Actors
One of the most recent cases of suspected grey warfare was reported in May 2025, when remote-access software provider ConnectWise disclosed that its ScreenConnect platform had been compromised in a cyber attack suspected to be linked to a nation-state actor.
The method reflects typical grey zone characteristics in that it was covert, hard to attribute, and disruptive without crossing the threshold of formal retaliation. By exploiting third-party trust relationships, attackers generated disproportionate leverage and uncertainty, forcing some affected firms into costly remediation with no clear adversary to respond to. As with most high-profile cyber incidents, the reputational fallout was significant, undermining stakeholder confidence, raising questions about due diligence and drawing scrutiny from clients and regulators alike.
Regulatory Retaliation as a Coercive Tool
In 2023, Chinese authorities blocked Micron Technology from critical infrastructure markets shortly after the US imposed new restrictions on semiconductor exports to China. The move, described in official language as a national security measure, was widely interpreted as a retaliatory gesture. In parallel, the abrupt use of exit bans and opaque legal investigations (and detentions) targeting foreign consultancy firms and their staff, like Bain & Co. and Mintz Group, signals a broader trend of regulatory tools being repurposed for strategic messaging.
Reputational Sabotage via Disinformation
In 2022, TotalEnergies was subject to a series of coordinated disinformation campaigns across Francophone Africa, accusing it of neo-colonial behaviour and military collusion. The narratives circulated primarily on social media, gaining traction in unstable political environments. Subsequent open-source analysis by BBC Monitoring linked the campaigns to Russian-aligned networks, timed to coincide with Wagner Group’s expansion into Mali and Niger. This was not spontaneous grassroots criticism, it was reputational degradation as part of a broader strategic incursion - with the end goal of pushing French interests out of the region.
Indirect Targeting through Proxies
Western logistics and energy contractors operating in Iraq and Syria have long faced targeted drone and roadside bomb attacks. These are often attributed to Iranian-backed militia groups acting without overt state direction. The use of proxies in contested environments allows adversaries to apply kinetic pressure while maintaining plausible deniability, leaving corporate actors exposed to strategic hostility without triggering conventional diplomatic or military responses.
Business Exposure and Strategic Response
The cases above highlight how grey zone threats are increasingly affecting business operations in ways that are difficult to manage through conventional frameworks. Threats are no longer confined to IT systems or physical security. They now affect legal compliance, public trust, personnel risk, and reputational standing - sometimes all at once. Managing these risks in isolation is no longer sensible.
The threat is compounded by the ambiguity central to grey zone operations. Attribution is rarely confirmed, and organisations must act on intelligence and probability rather than wait for certainty. Many firms remain reactive because they are not structured to interpret ambiguous, politically motivated threats. Instead, cyber incidents are often treated as isolated technical issues, and regulatory coercion is handled through standard compliance channels - failing to register the geopolitical strategy behind them.
Grey zone warfare is also difficult to counter because it provides hostile actors with disproportionate advantage. For minimal cost, they can inflict serious disruption on global firms by exploiting their visibility, strategic importance, and reputational sensitivity. These attacks are publicly deniable but privately coercive, aimed at undermining an organisation’s position and resilience while generating political leverage. In this environment, organisations are no longer bystanders, they are deliberate targets in geopolitical contests, often without adequate state protection against threats to their cyber and reputational assets.
Unlike conventional threats, such as robbery, which governments counteract through law enforcement, grey zone threats typically leave private organisations exposed to vulnerabilities host governments are mostly unwilling to effectively address. As such organisations around the world are left to tackle these issues themselves. Recommended approaches include integrating geopolitical risk into business continuity planning, mapping exposure across legal, digital, and narrative channels, and scenario planning for escalating pressure. Spotlight Risks is on hand to support the delivery of the geopolitical intelligence and analytical expertise required to provide strategic foresight, enable effective mitigation, and drive organisational resilience.
How Can We Help?
Spotlight Risks is on hand to provide international organisations the necessary actionable intelligence they will need to remain well aware of the changing political, economic, and security dynamics of a region or specific landscape.
Gain an understanding of where the potential flashpoints of the future are likely to be and their implications for international security. Provide your organisation with the intelligence and forecasting needed to make informed decisions necessary to help navigate shifting security trends, and recognise the risks and opportunities presented by this increasingly complex security environment.
Travel Security / Operational Level Risk Mitigation
Spotlight Risks are experts at providing organisations the necessary assistance to help them with any strategic planning, diversification, and proactive approach to risk management - key to reducing operational dependencies, maintaining operational resilience and securing assets and personnel in the face of these global challenges.
Security Risk Management (SRM) Policy Production / Reviews
Spotlight Risks excels in developing and reviewing security risk management policies to the latest ISO standards. We craft customised SRM strategies that align with your organisation's specific needs and objectives. Our approach involves a thorough analysis of existing policies, identification of potential risks, and the implementation of robust, scalable solutions. We ensure that your organisation is well-equipped to manage and mitigate risks effectively, fostering a secure and resilient operational environment.
