On the Possibility of Legal Protection Against Cyber Attacks from abroad under Public International Law
Abstract
The paper deals with following research question: How should a state use the public international law to face the cyber-attacks originating from foreign countries? It uses past DDoS strikes on targets in the Czech Republic as the demonstrative case. Firstly, the paper tackles the objective element of the cyber-attack as the internationally wrongful act.
It investigates the criteria that would have to be met in order to qualify the cyber-attack as the use of force according to the UN Charter. It also asks when the cyber-attack constitutes the breach of national sovereignty and violation of the obligation not to intervene in the inner affairs of other states.
Furthermore paper focuses on the attribution problem, which represents the subjective element of the internationally wrongful act. It summarizes what circumstances make a cyber-attack attributable to a state.
In the third part, the paper deals with frequent situations when the direct attribution of cyber-attack is impossible. It considers whether the state should be responsible for the cyber-attacks originating from its territory as well other alternative solutions.