Cyber Warfare and the Crime of Aggression: The Need for Individual Accountability on Tomorrow’s Battlefield

As cyberspace matures, the international system faces a new challenge in confronting the use of force. Non-State actors continue to grow in importance, gaining the skill and the expertise necessary to wage asymmetric warfare using non-traditional weaponry that can create devastating real-world consequences. The international legal system must adapt to this battleground and provide workable mechanisms to hold aggressive actors accountable for their actions. The International Criminal Court--the only criminal tribunal in the world with global reach--holds significant promise in addressing this threat. The Assembly of State Parties should construct the definition of aggression to include these emerging challenges. By structuring the definition to confront the challenges of cyberspace--specifically non-State actors, the disaggregation of warfare, and new conceptions of territoriality--the International Criminal Court can become a viable framework of accountability for the wars of the twenty-first century

Vice or Virtue? Exploring the Dichotomy of an Offensive Security Engineer and Government “Hack Back” Policies

In response to increasing cybersecurity threats, government and private agencies have increasingly hired offensive security experts: red-hat” hackers. They differ from the better-known “white-hat” hackers in applying the methods of cybercriminals against cybercriminals and counter or preemptively attacking, rather than focusing on defending against attacks. Often considered the vigilantes of the hacker ecosystem, they work under the same rules as would be hackers, attackers, hacktivists, organized cyber-criminals, and state-sponsored attackers—which can easily lead them into the unethical practices often associated with such groups. Utilizing the virtue (ethics) theory and cyber attribution, we argue that there exists a dichotomy among offensive security engineers, one that appreciates organizational security practices, but at the same time violates ethics in how to retaliate against a malicious attacker

Russian Influence Operations on Social Media in Ukraine

Master i samfunnsvitenskap med fordypning i internasjonale relasjoner - 202

Organised Crime and the Internet: Implications for National Security

Before being able to establish whether certain kinds of organised cyber-crime constitute a security threat, it is important to consider the wide variation in structure and targets of cyber-criminal organisations, some of which are state agencies or state

War of Nerves: Russia\u27s Use of Cyber Warfare in Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine

This project examines how Soviet military thought has influenced present day Russian military doctrine and has evolved to include cyber warfare as part of the larger structure of Russian information warfare. The analysis of three case studies of Russian cyber activity, the attack on Estonia (2007), the Russian-Georgian war (2008) and the ongoing Ukrainian war (beginning 2014), demonstrates the continuity of military doctrine and the physical manifestation of Russia’s cyber capabilities

Cyber-Conflict, Cyber-Crime, and Cyber-Espionage

Computers and the Internet have changed and are continuing to change the way governments, militaries, businesses, and other organs of society manage their activities. While computers can improve efficiency, they are vulnerable to cyber-attack, cyber-crime, and cyber-espionage. 1 The international community, states, and businesses are still adapting to the unique set of challenges posed by cyber-attack, cyber-crime, and cyber-espionage. States are creating military operations that specialize in cyber-attack and defense to adapt to these relatively new threats to national security operations.