Reconsidering the Consequences for State-Sponsored Hostile Cyber Operations Under International Law
By Dr. Catherine Lotrionte
| September 05, 2018
In 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke about the rising dangers of a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” analogizing the potential devastation from a cyberattack to that of the surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii in December of 1941. [1] More recently, U.S. Senator John McCain called the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections “an act of war.” [2]The reality of contemporary international relations and the proliferation of cyber operations as an adjunct to both peacetime and wartime operations of states has raised important questions about what would constitute an act of war in the cyber domain, triggering the relevant international legal rules regulating state behavior. As of yet, there is no global consensus about what an act of war carried out by cyber means would look like, versus acts that would fall below the level of an act of war, and although still unlawful, would call for different responses under the law. [3]
Reconsidering the Consequences for State-Sponsored Hostile Cyber Operations Under International Law