Advances in technology have always transformed military doctrine and have influenced developments in the law of armed conflict to constrain how conflict is waged. This can be seen in particular in the rules of the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the use of weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
One hundred days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are witnessing a paradigm shift. The interconnection (and synchronization) of traditional military attacks with massive disinformation operations and campaigns of cyberattacks has enormous implications for cyberspace. This invasion, and the massive use of digital means, has opened a new era in armed conflicts.
| Stephane Duguin |
Indeed, in cyberspace, the war in Ukraine did not start on Feb. 24, 2022, is not limited to the Russian and Ukrainian borders, and is not fought exclusively by the military. This reality is fundamental to thinking about the attribution of cyberattacks, the investigation of war crimes, and even the humanitarian needs of the civilian population.
It has been well documented that the Russian authorities and Russian-speaking criminal groups were at work long before the invasion: data theft, as well as intrusion and tracking of systems, enabled the creation of useful information for the war effort. At the same time, destructive cyberattacks were deployed weeks before the invasion to weaken Ukraine's technological capabilities.
Additionally, the Russian disinformation machine, which has been running at full speed since the invasion, not only aims to spread false information about the hostilities (the present) but also to modify history (the past). Russian disinformation seeks to reinvent history, such as the details of the Nuremberg Trials, or painting Ukrainians as Nazi criminals. These tactics have been around for years, and are accelerating since the invasion of Ukraine.
But the profound change is not only temporal. It is spatial. This "crowdsourced" war potentially allows anyone to participate in the hostilities through digital means wherever they are located, using human capabilities and technical infrastructures which are outside Ukraine and Russia. (Importantly, the same capabilities also enable the documentation of war crimes.)
These developments are happening so rapidly that it calls for clarifications of international humanitarian law (IHL) because of the unique characteristics of cyberspace. In cyberspace, it is very difficult to separate technology which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, although IHL restricts the use of cyber capabilities as a means or method of warfare during armed conflicts as essential to protecting civilians and other protected persons, infrastructure essential for the survival of the civilian population, as well as civilian objects. Clarifications will also be required in relation to the role of “collectives,” “hacktivists” and other groups that have carried out cyberattacks for a specific or limited time, pledging allegiance to and committing cyberattacks on behalf of one or other of the belligerent parties including using the civilian infrastructure of a country that is not a party to the conflict, such as participation in distributed denial-of-service campaigns (DDoS).
These temporal and spatial “mutations” are major. Traditionally war, whether conducted on land, sea, or in the air, have been spaces controlled by states. Cyberspace is a set of technical infrastructures, largely owned by private actors, or operated by groups using technologies that belong to everyone and no one. In this context, the war between Russia and Ukraine has led to a paradigm shift, as the scale and space of warfare now includes cyberspace and the information space, and this connects civilians, industry, military, collectives and criminal groups in a way that has not previously been encountered. It will be essential to recognize this paradigm shift to ensure that the waging of war in cyberspace is limited by the rules imposed by international law and norms in order to ensure the protection of civilians.
Stephane Duguin is one of the speakers at the 2022 World Emerging Security Forum, in Seoul, from June 21-22, speaking at the session “Ongoing Battle in Cyberspace: A Case in Ukraine”. He is CEO of the CyberPeace Institute, a neutral and independent NGO, working for cyberpeace. The Institute tracks Cyber Attacks in Times of Conflict Platform #Ukraine.