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Strategic Vision vol. 10, no. 50 (September, 2021)
Coordinated Security US seeks help holding states accountable for hacking attacks and cyber crime Hon-min Yau
photo: Cristiaan Colen Cyber threats cross national borders with impunity, as shown by this graphic depicting cyber attacks in real time.
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n June 14, 2021, after concluding their summit in Brussels, NATO leaders jointly announced the 2021 Brussels Summit Communiqué. Other than characterizing Russia and China as “security challenges,” one of the highlights was that NATO leaders concluded that a cyberattack could meet the threshold for invoking Article 5, the collective defense article, of the Washington Treaty. Security observers believe this development came in response to the many recent significant cyber security incidents, including the 2020 SolarWinds attacks, the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and the 2021 Pulse Secure VPN attacks, which allegedly
originated in either Russia or China. In retrospect, the discussion of whether cyberattacks constitute an act of war within the international community is not new. Early in the 2014 Wales Summit, NATO members already agreed that international law applies to cyberspace and that cyber defense is part of NATO’s core task of collective defense. There are also various efforts within the United Nations (UN) to shape cyber norms and regulate accepted behavior in cyberspace. However, NATO’s high-profile reiteration in 2021 suggests that there is still a huge gap in expectations between what is anticipated by NATO and what is happing on the ground.
Dr. Hon-min Yau is an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Strategic Studies, War College, at the ROC National Defense University. He can be reached for comment at cf22517855@gmail.com