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

1.2 I nternational L aw A ttempts to P rotect C ritical I nfrastructures against M alicious C yber O perations

By Triantafyllos Kouloufakos (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Introduction There was a time when the words cyber-attack had a degree of mystification on them. The early 2000s provided us with a series of cyber operations, all with increasingly serious consequences. 55 Nevertheless, twenty years ago, a cyber-attack was something worthy of news, albeit news that were not very approachable to a layman. Words like cyber worm or cyber malware were just starting to lose the fabled status that they held during the 80’s and 90’s, but again only just. A cyber-attack was something extremely important, something that warranted invited computer specialists in everyday news to analyze and soothe the masses that were just recovering from the Y2K scare. 56 Today’s news though, tell a different story. We have come to expect at least two or three segments of every major news site to be about a malicious cyber operation and its very serious consequence. The current conflicts in Ukraine, and very recently in Gaza, have exacerbated this. From the start of Russia’s invasion, news about cyber attacks and the opposing cyber armies, flood the news almost daily. 57 At the point of this introduction being written, the crisis in Gaza has been on for almost a week and there are already news articles about cyber operations to aid and relief groups in Gaza. 58 It is reasonable that we have become desensitized to cyber-attacks, which is certainly dire. Offensive cyber operations become more complicated and more catastrophic by the day and unfortunately, they have been increasingly targeting critical infrastructures. 59 An energy pipeline which creates hours of car lines in gas stations, 60 a wave of attacks that 55 Forrester N, ‘A brief history of cyber-threats – from 2000 to 2020’ ( Security Brief , 12 January 2021) accessed 31 October 2023. 56 Uenuma F, ‘20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke–Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously’ ( Time , 30 December 2019) accessed 31 October 2023. 57 Starks T, ‘What we’ve learned from a year of Russian cyberattacks in Ukraine’ ( Washington Post , 16 February 2023) accessed 31 October 2023. 58 Siddiqui Z, ‘Hackers hit aid groups responding to Israel and Gaza crisis’ ( Reuters , 13 October 2023) accessed 31 October 2023. 59 Reed J, ‘High-impact attacks on critical infrastructure climb 140%’ ( Security Intelligence , 26 June 2023) accessed 31 October 2023. 60 Kerner SM, ‘Colonial Pipeline hack explained: Everything you need to know’ ( TechTarget , 26 April 2022) accessed 31 October 2023.

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