The Law of Self-Defence in Cyber Operations

Abstract

Self-defence against cyber attacks can be practiced by physical, electronic or digital methods or means. Actual self-defence utilizes conventional weapons to focus on the digital infrastructure of the intruder, for example, the hosts, “servers” from which the digital attacks arise, or other actual targets consistently with the prerequisites of need and proportionality and with international
humanitarian law. Electronic responses to a cyber attacks utilize “the employment of electromagnetic energy, directed energy, or anti-radiation weapons to attack forces, installations, or instruments with the purpose of debasing, negating, or obliterating enemy fighting capacity. Cyber defences can be latent or dynamic. While latent safeguards don't include pressure or unapproved interruption into PC systems and hence are not a use of force, the latter are reactions in-kind to a past cyber attack and are indeed attack themselves that may fall inside the remit of the jus ad bellum to the degree that they amount to a use of force. In paper we will examine the use of the law of selfdefence in the cyber discourse. It will be seen that the lessons (examples) learned corresponding to global terrorism are valuable for making a legitimate worldview for self-defence against cyber attacks.