When Do Cyberattacks Become Acts of War?
By Allan Holmes | Tuesday, May 22, 2007 | 11:26 AM
By Allan Holmes | Tuesday, May 22, 2007 | 11:26 AM
Recent articles cyberattacks on Estonia's government Web sites has posed some complex policy and legal questions for governments -- is a cyberattack equivalent to an armed attack? Slate's Anne Applebaum points out in her article posted today that Estonia is a member, albeit a new one, to NATO, which, according to the alliance treaty, considers "an armed attack on one of its members 'an attack against them all.'" What to do?
When does cyberwarfare, or information warfare as the Defense Department calls it, become an attack worthy of retaliation, cyberbased or armed?
If you have some thoughts, please click the comment link below and let us know.
Comments
Cyber attacks constitute an act of war when the national security, economic security, or public health, safety, and/or confidence of a country are jeopardized.
Sounds simple right? The trouble is defining what these thresholds are - something policy makers in most nation states have not figured out yet.
I would say that kinetic war policy is not perfect either, however. Many times physical attacks have occurred and countries have not declared war - this is where apologetic diplomacy works wonders.
Jerry | Thursday, May 31, 2007 | 11:43 AMIt is an act of war from scratch - that at least is how the national security wonks specializing in cyberwar/IOs have been pitching similar, albeit projected, scenarios to policy makers.
How and when to respond offensively to such attacks is another matter, primarily a political matter unless the situation degrades to a point where lives and limbs are actually being lost - but Estonia is far from such a state.
At the moment, the attacks on Estonia correlate well to standard war game scenario parameters/inputs, minus the scripted degradation of actual life supporting infrastructure, a common resultant/assumption in most war game scenarios played by various national security entities.
The extent to which such a massive and widely distributed attack against Estonia actually wreaks havoc on life, and life supportive property - that is what I find interesting about the Estonian episode. How well do the inputs and assumptions of standard cyberwar scenarios compare to this in vivo run?
Are babies dying in their incubators? Are local bourses crashing and investors fleeing Estonia? Is their still water to drink?
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Allan Holmes on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.
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