Inside Cyber Warfare, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4. Responding to International Cyber Attacks as Acts of War

Whereas the previous chapter discussed some of the legal questions and strategies being debated among the international community of legal scholars, this chapter focuses on one strategy in particular that addresses the fuzzy role of nonstate actors in cyber conflicts between nation-states, that is, assigning states responsibility for their nonaction and enacting consequences because of it.

I want to thank Lt. Cdr. Matt Sklerov for laboriously rewriting his 111-page thesis so that I could include it in this book.^[3] In my opinion, Matt is one of the rising stars of the Department of Defense, and I feel privileged that he has consented to have his work republished here. Although there are still unresolved issues with Active Defense (such as confusion around attribution), he makes his case so thoroughly and persuasively that I believe it will serve as an excellent platform for further discussion, not just in the US government, but in governments and military commands around the world.

—Jeffrey Carr

By Lieutenant Commander Matthew J. Sklerov

One of the most heavily debated issues in international law is when states may lawfully respond to cyber attacks in self-defense. While the law of war is comprised of well-known and widely accepted principles, applying these principles to cyber attacks is a difficult task. This difficulty arises out of the fact that the law of war developed, for the most part, in response to conventional ...