New Technologies in International Law / Tymofeyeva, Crhák et al.

space. For it is not so much about rigid regulations as it is about the ‘spirit’ of the regu lations, as the Court of Justice of the EU often emphasises in its judgments. 2. The violations of the abovemetntioned regulations during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict Some examples of security violations in cyberspace have been seen since the very beginning of the war. 707 And even before the outbreak of the conflict (sic!), there were repeated attacks from Russia. It might therefore be argued that the hybrid war was primary to the actual armed conflict fought since February 2022. For instance, one of the most recognisable situation was registered on 15 February 2022. The websites of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, the armed forces and the two largest state-owned banks (PrywatBank and Oszczadbank) were attacked. The attack consisted of overloading the servers with artificially generated queries to lead to difficulties in accessing government websites, online banking and the bank’s mobile app. Some payment systems were also visibly impaired. As The Polish Institute of International Affairs mentioned, the aim of this attack was not to obtain information, but to sow panic in society. The blocking of websites should have probably led to lowering Ukrainians’ confidence in the state’s defence capabilities. Moreover, the attack on banks was in turn intended to undermine confidence in the financial system. As an interesting aside confirming the scale of the problem, it may be pointed out the firm Check Point Research, in its 2023 Cyber Security Report, stated that the number of cyber attacks on the Ukrainian government and military sector in the first three days of the war increased by 196 % and the number of phishing messages in Eastern Slavic languages increased by as much as seven times. The function that can be attributed to cyber attacks is therefore interesting. Taking as a given the primary role that this type of behaviour is intended to play, it is not possible to conclude a priori that it is about the acquisition and theft of information. Using the example of Russia’s action described above, it is evident that often the basic premise of the groups responsible for carrying out a cyber attack is to influence the psyche of the authorities and society as a whole. Thus, the cyber attack is intended to create a space susceptible to further military and economic action. In this light, the fact that cyber attacks often occur before the outbreak of a proper interstate conflict seems to find justification. Since the beginning of this year, nearly 4,000 cyber-attacks have been recorded. 708 Despite their scale, it should be emphasised that, Russian cyber attacks are being met with an increasingly advanced response from the Ukrainian services. For instance, there is a special organisation named The Security Service of Ukraine (reffered to as: ‘ SSU ’) which fights against cyber attacks. 707 ‘Cyberatak na Ukrainie. Celem hakerów było czyszczenie danych’ ( Wydarzenia , 23 February 2022) accessed 16 December 2023. 708 Palczewski S, ‘Ataki na Ukraine. SBU podało dane za ten rok’ ( CyberDefence 24 , 4 October 2023) accessed 16 December 2023.

173