Category Archives: international law

NSA-approved cybersecurity law and policy course now available online

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Anyone who is interested in cybersecurity law and policy can now take an online course that was partly shaped by National Security Agency. The course, which can be accessed through Penn State University’s Clark Center, touches on international and domestic cybersecurity law, cyber risk and technical details like how smartphones function, according to Anne McKenna, a Penn State professor who organized the course. James Houck, director of Penn State’s Center for Security Research and Education, told CyberScoop that program will serve as a primer to the legal and technical details of offensive and defensive cyber-operations. “What we’re trying to do … is create a framework for people who are trying to be introduced to cyber law, to offensive, defensive cyber operations, and for them to learn the fundamentals, the framework — and in our case legal authorities for how these work,” Houck said. Houck clarified that although the NSA put out […]

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U.S. tech giants back French call for global cooperation in cyberspace

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A multifaceted framework for lessening aggression in global cyberspace was unveiled by the French government on Monday, drawing support from tech giants and digital rights groups. Announced on the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War I, The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace condemns “malicious cyber activities in peacetime,” affirms the applicability of international law to nation-state behavior in cyberspace, and aims to keep private companies from hacking back. The document pledges to strengthen the ability of government and private-sector organizations to combat interference in electoral processes through malicious cyber activities. Like the U.S. 2016 presidential election, France’s 2017 presidential election was reportedly the target of Russian hack-and-leak operations. Previous cyber norms initiatives have been confined to governments or industry, but the Paris Call aims to be the first multi-stakeholder initiative backed by governments, industry, academia, and civil society, according to Klara Jordan, head of the Atlantic […]

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Tallinn Manual author: Petya malware attack likely war crime

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If Russia was indeed behind the recent destructive malware attack known as Petya, then it should be considered a war crime, according to the lead author of the definitive guide to international law in cyber conflict. Even though no one was injured or killed, they very easily could have been; the attackers appear to have targeted civilian infrastructure including hospitals and power companies; and they did so with an indiscriminate weapon, argues Prof. Michael Schmitt of the U.S. Naval War College, and lead author of the Tallinn Manual, in an article posted on the European Journal of International Law. But the reasoning only holds if Moscow was behind the attack — because Russia is already engaged in an armed conflict, albeit undeclared, with Ukraine, the nation originally targeted by the malware. Petya on its own isn’t be a big enough attack to count as a “use of force” in international law. “A threshold question is, ‘Is the […]

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Report: International nonprofit would ease work of cyber-attribution

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Identifying the perpetrators of cyberattacks and other malicious online activities is tough. Aside from the purely technical difficulties, would-be attributors also must deal with a skeptical public that is suspicious of official pronouncements and wary about misinformation — even from democratic governments. That being the case, concludes a new study, what’s needed is an international nongovernmental body consisting of technical, policy and legal experts that could conduct independent investigations into cyber-incidents and publish their results. The study was published Friday by the RAND Corp., a think tank with historic ties to the U.S. military. “We see this as a first step,” the study’s lead author, RAND Senior Information Scientist John Davis, told CyberScoop. “Personally, I hope this work continues.” The study was financed by Microsoft, whose President Brad Smith called in February for a “Digital Geneva Convention.” Last year, in a policy paper, the company called for an intergovernmental body — modeled on the International […]

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Former NSA hackers: Yahoo indictments won’t slow down Russian cyberattacks

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Newly unveiled indictments against a group of hackers working for Russian intelligence will do little to deter future cyberattacks against the U.S., former NSA analysts and government lawyers tell CyberScoop. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s National Security Division pioneered a cybersecurity strategy of deterrence through indictments and criminal prosecutions. Over the last several years, in the aftermath of multiple high-profile data breaches, however, this approach of “naming and shaming” has garnered significant criticism for its lack of clear, deliverable results, experts say. “The [Yahoo] indictment calls into question whether past ‘name and shame’ indictments of international cybercriminals have had any deterrent effect,” said Edward McAndrew, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of Virginia and for the District of Delaware, via email. “Indictments of this type only have deterrent effect if the defendants end up in a US prison — and for longer […]

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