[slackr]

Why do they say "nation state actor", isn't "state actor" the correct term? I thought Russia, like the UK and many other states, is a multinational state, including numerous languages and cultures.

[raccoonDivider]

I've always wondered why infosec people love this expression so much. Maybe "nation state" just sounds more impressive. Who cares what the state is composed of? Or is it "nation/state", one or the other?

[mr_mitm]

Clearly only a nation-state threat actor could have pulled off this highly sophisticated cyber attack of ... Spraying passwords

[GartzenDeHaes]

Seems a bit out of style to blame the Russians, but I guess that describes Microsoft in general.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

Maybe to make it clear to American readers it's not Iova?

[alexdns]

> Why do they say "nation state actor"

A Nation-State is the idea of a homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state—where each state contains one nation.

[Symbiote]

And that definition doesn't describe the Russian Federation. There are many nations within Russia, ones you may have heard of are Bashkortostan (in the news this month due to protests) and Chechnya (civil wars in the 1990s). It is not a homogeneous federation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia

[the_why_of_y]

Indeed, the term doesn't describe any of the 3 countries it's most often applied to (the other being China and the USA).

[tucnak]

Perhaps de jure it's not, but in reality it's clear that Russia is a hyper-centralised city-state (Moscow) in all respects.

[dan-robertson]

Yeah I find this particularly funny with infosec because the usual state {level,funded,sanctioned} actors are Russia, Iran, and North Korea, of which only one is a nation state.