List of articles

This page serves as the equivalent of a table of contents in a printed book. It contains an updated list of all substantive articles in the Toolkit.

1 About the project

• Main page
• FAQ
• Note on the structure of articles
• Glossary
• Short form citation
• Bibliography
• People

2 Scenarios

• Scenario 01: Election interference
• Scenario 02: Political espionage
• Scenario 03: Power grid
• Scenario 04: International organizations
• Scenario 05: Criminal investigation
• Scenario 06: Enabling State
• Scenario 07: Hacking tools
• Scenario 08: Certificate authority
• Scenario 09: Economic espionage
• Scenario 10: Cyber weapons
• Scenario 11: Surveillance tools
• Scenario 12: Computer data
• Scenario 13: Armed conflict
• Scenario 14: Ransomware campaign
• Scenario 15: Cyber deception
• Scenario 16: High seas
• Scenario 17: Collective responses
• Scenario 18: Cyber operators
• Scenario 19: Hate speech
• Scenario 20: Medical facilities
• Scenario 21: Misattribution
• Scenario 22: Methods of warfare
• Scenario 23: Vaccine research
• Scenario 24: Internet blockage
• Scenario 25: Humanitarian assistance

3 Legal concepts

3.1 General international law

• Applicability of international law
• Jurisdiction
• State responsibility
  • Attribution
    • State organs
    • Non-State actors
    • Evidence
    • Responsibility of a State for the conduct of another State
    • Mistake of fact
  • Breach of an international obligation
  • Responses and justifications
    • Circumstances precluding wrongfulness
      • Consent
      • Self-defence (state responsibility)
      • Countermeasures
      • Force majeure
      • Distress
      • Plea of necessity
    • Retorsion
      • Targeted restrictive measures
• Due diligence
• Sovereignty
• Prohibition of intervention
• Prohibition of genocide
• Transboundary harm
• Voluntary, non-binding norms of responsible state behavior
• Cyber operations not per se regulated by international law
  • Peacetime cyber espionage

3.2 Specialised regimes of peacetime international law

• Diplomatic and consular law
• Law of the sea
  • Flag State jurisdiction
  • Freedom of navigation
  • Sovereign immunity
  • Maritime law enforcement
• Air law
• Space law
• International telecommunication law
• International human rights law
• International criminal law
  • Crime of genocide
  • Crimes against humanity
  • War crimes

3.3 Use of force, conflict and international law

• Peaceful settlement of disputes
• International law on the use of force (jus ad bellum)
  • Use of force
  • Armed attack and self-defence
• International humanitarian law (jus in bello)
  • Conflict qualification
    • International armed conflict
    • Non-international armed conflict
  • Conduct of hostilities
    • Military objectives
      • Data as a military objective
    • The notion of ‘attack’ under international humanitarian law
    • Combatancy
      • Direct participation in hostilities
    • Attacks against persons
    • Means and methods of cyber warfare
      • Perfidy and ruses of war
      • Misuse of established indicators
      • Legal review of cyber weapons
  • Specially protected persons, objects, and activities
    • Protection of medical units during armed conflict
    • Humanitarian relief operations
  • Occupation
  • Neutrality

4 Real-world examples

• 2022
  • Cyber operations against government systems in Ukraine (January 2022)
• 2021
  • Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack (2021)
  • UN data breach (2021)
  • Ireland’s Health Service Executive ransomware attack (2021)
  • Kaseya VSA ransomware attack (2021)
  • Microsoft Exchange Server data breach (2021)
  • Pegasus Project revelations (2021)
• 2020
  • African Union headquarters hack (2020)
  • Brno University Hospital ransomware attack (2020)
  • Google shutting down an active counterterrorism operation (2020)
  • SolarWinds (2020)
  • Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine data modification and leak (2020)
  • APT32 attacks on Chinese government (2020)
• 2019
  • Cyber interference against vessels in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (2019)
  • Iranian internet blackout (2019)
  • Israeli attack against Hamas cyber headquarters in Gaza (2019)
  • Russia's sovereign internet (2019 onward)
  • Springhill Medical Center ransomware attack (2019)
  • Texas Municipality ransomware attack (2019)
• 2018
  • African Union headquarters hack (2018)
  • Olympic Destroyer (2018)
  • SamSam ransomware incidents (2018)
• 2017
  • Ethiopian surveillance of journalists abroad (2017)
  • French presidential election leak (2017)
  • Hate speech in India (since 2017)
  • Operation Cloudhopper (2017)
  • NotPetya (2017)
  • Triton (2017)
  • WannaCry (2017)
  • Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao and Xia Lei indictment (2017)
• 2016
  • Surveillance of Civil Society Groups/Ahmed Mansoor (2016)
  • DNC email leak (2016)
  • Industroyer – Crash Override (2016)
  • Operation Glowing Symphony (2016)
  • The Shadow Brokers publishing the NSA vulnerabilities (2016)
• 2015
  • Bundestag Hack (2015)
  • Office of Personnel Management data breach (2015)
  • Power grid cyberattack in Ukraine (2015)
  • The Hacking Team Hack (2015)
• 2014
  • Chinese PLA Unit 61398 indictments (2014)
  • Sony Pictures Entertainment attack (2014)
  • Steel mill in Germany (2014)
  • Ukrainian parliamentary election interference (2014)
• 2012
  • Shamoon (2012)
• 2011
  • Caucasus internet outage (2011)
  • Syria’s ‘social media war’ (since 2011)
  • DigiNotar (2011)
• 2010
  • Hate speech in Myanmar (since early 2010s)
  • Stuxnet (2010)
  • SuperMicro supply chain breach (since 2010)
• 2008
  • Georgia-Russia conflict (2008)
  • Bangladesh internet outage (2008)
• 2007
  • Cyber attacks against Estonia (2007)
  • Operation Orchard/Outside the Box (2007)

5 National positions

• Australia (2020)
• Brazil (2021)
• Canada (2022)
• China (2021)
• Czech Republic (2020)
• Estonia (2019 and 2021)
• Finland (2020)
• France (2019)
• Germany (2021)
• Iran (2020)
• Israel (2020)
• Italy (2021)
• Japan (2021)
• Kazakhstan (2021)
• Kenya (2021)
• Netherlands (2019)
• New Zealand (2020)
• Norway (2021)
• Romania (2021)
• Russia (2021)
• Singapore (2021)
• Switzerland (2021)
• United Kingdom (2018 and 2021)
• United States (2012, 2016, 2020 and 2021)