Today, July 2, 2026, doctoral candidate Zlatan Morić successfully defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Quantifying the Impact of Cyberattacks on Global Trade Networks: A Network Analysis Approach.”

The defense committee consisted of Prof. Dr. Ivana Ogrizek Biškupić and Prof. Dr. Vedran Dakić.

He completed his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Robert Kopala and co-supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zoran Levnajić.

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the reciprocal relationship between cyberattacks and global trade networks. Directed weighted networks constructed from bilateral trade data (2010–2020) are linked to country-level cyber incident records. Logistic and negative binomial models show that structurally accessible countries face significantly higher cyberattack probabilities (OR = 5.33, p < 0.001) and intensities (IRR = 5.78, p = 0.016). Difference-in-differences, event-study, and spillover analyses find no measurable change in network centrality following attacks (treatment effects < 0.07 SD; spillover coefficients < 0.004, p > 0.38). The central finding is a structural asymmetry: harmonic in-closeness centrality predicts cyber risk, yet the network remains unchanged by the attacks it attracts. Robustness analysis across four trade datasets (Spearman ρ > 0.95) confirms these conclusions are invariant to data source selection.

KEYWORDS: global trade networks, cyberattack risk, network centrality, structural exposure, systemic resilience, network analysis, cybersecurity

Sincere congratulations!