A Brave New World: Applying International Law of War to Cyber Attacks

This article by Noah Simmons addresses the unsettled legal status of cyberattacks under international law, arguing that existing "use of force" and "armed attack" analyses under the UN Charter do not adequately account for cyber operations. Simmons proposes a test for when a cyberattack should be treated as an armed attack: where a state uses kinetic or virtual force with the intent of altering a target country's sovereign or strategic power by significantly disrupting its military, critical, or strategic infrastructure. The article positions this test as reconciling the UN Charter's traditional goals with the practical realities of state and non-state cyber operations, which the author notes are occurring with increasing frequency and magnitude.