Category Archives: Tallinn Manual

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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Global malware attack ‘most likely’ carried out by a nation-state, NATO-sponsored researchers say

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The search for the source of last week’s global malware attacks continues as experts are increasingly pointing toward Russian involvement in the incident. The NATO-affiliated Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE) in Tallinn, Estonia, concluded last week that the attack was “most likely” carried out by a nation-state. The report followed a string of separate analyses that said the attacks appeared to have Russian sources. CCD COE researchers pointed to the sophistication of the malware. “In the case of NotPetya, significant improvements have been made to create a new breed of ultimate threat,” said one of the researchers, Bernhards Blumbergs. “Among all new features, the malware has been more professionally developed in contrast with sloppy WannaCry, and instead of scanning the whole Internet it is more targeted and searches for new hosts to infect deeper on local computer networks once initial breach has occurred.” The assertion by NATO-sponsored researchers that a nation-state probably spread the malware only intensifies questions […]

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