NATO cyberwar directive declares hackers military targets

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://rt.com/usa/nato-publishes-cyberwar-guidelines-502/

RT.com
March 19, 2013

As the United States and its adversaries move from using missiles to malware on 
its targets, a group of specialists have drafted preliminary guidelines for the 
world’s ramped-up cyberwars.

The rule book published this week, The Tallinn Manual on International Law 
Applicable to Cyber Warfare, was curated by NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense 
Center of Excellence and calls upon two dozen experts from around the world to 
help lay the groundwork for cyberwar guidelines as attacks aimed at computer 
grids, networks and systems increasingly become the target of foreign agents.

Michael Schmitt, a professor with the US Naval War College and the editor of 
the manual, told the Associated Press before publication that the guidelines 
come at a time when few laws formally exist governing the use of so-called 
cyberweapons. Just like bombs and missiles, hackers and state-sponsored parties 
can use malicious code to wipe out entire databases, break down machinery and 
otherwise render enter infrastructures useless.

"Everyone was seeing the Internet as the 'Wild, Wild, West,'" Schmitt told the 
AP. "What they had forgotten is that international law applies to cyberweapons 
like it applies to any other weapons."

[...]

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