Main Page

Welcome to the Cyber Law Toolkit, an interactive online resource on international law and cyber operations.

About the project

The Cyber Law Toolkit is a dynamic interactive web-based resource for legal professionals who work with matters at the intersection of international law and cyber operations. You can explore the Toolkit in a number of different ways. At its heart, the Toolkit consists of 13 (and counting) hypothetical scenarios, each of which contains a description of cyber incidents inspired by real-world examples accompanied by detailed legal analysis. You can see all scenarios in the box immediately below – just click on any of them to follow the relevant analysis. In addition, you may want to explore the Toolkit by looking for keywords you’re interested in; by viewing its overall article structure; or by reading about individual real-world examples that had inspired the Toolkit scenarios. Finally, you may want to use the search function in the top right corner of this page to look for specific words across all of the Toolkit content.

Cyber law scenarios

S01 (Election interference)	S02 (Political espionage)	S03 (Power grid)	S04 (International organization)
S05 (Criminal investigation)	S06 (Enabling State)	S07 (Hacking tools)	S08 (Certificate authority)
S09 (Economic espionage)	S10 (Cyber weapons)	S11 (Surveillance tools)	S12 (Computer data)
S13 (Armed conflict)

Featured incident

On 27 July 2018, the New York Times reported a statement from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that a 2017 cyber campaign by Russia had allegedly compromised the networks of several electrical utility companies in the US. The DHS linked the attack to the Russian group known as Dragonfly or Energetic Bear. The DHS stated that the attacks put the infiltrators in a position where they were capable of causing blackouts on the US territory. The department cited "hundreds of victims", greater than previously acknowledged. The statement was preceded by a joint alert issued by the DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March 2018, warning network defenders of Russian threats to US critical infrastructure sectors including energy, water, and aviation. Scenario 03 specifically considers and assesses the impact of one State conducting a cyber operation against the electrical grid of another State.

Behind the scenes

The project is supported through the UK ESRC IAA Project Co-Creation scheme. Partner institutions include the University of Exeter, United Kingdom; NATO Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE) in Tallinn, Estonia; and the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NCISA) in Brno, Czechia. The project team is composed of Dr Kubo Mačák (Exeter); Mr Tomáš Minárik (CCD COE); and Ms Taťána Jančárková (NCISA). The individual scenarios and the Toolkit as such have been reviewed by a team of over 20 peer reviewers. The Toolkit was formally launched on [XX] May 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia, and it is continuously updated by a team led by Mr Minárik. For questions about the project including media enquiries, please contact us at [projectadress]@exeter.ac.uk.

Other resources

• FAQ – Frequently asked questions about the project and the Toolkit.
• All articles – Updated list of all substantive articles in the Toolkit. In a printed book, this would be the table of contents.
• Keywords – Overview of all keywords used across the Toolkit content. Serves the same purpose as an index would in a printed book.
• Examples – List of real-world incidents that have inspired the analysis in the Toolkit.
• Glossary – Glossary of the technical terms used in the Toolkit.
• Short form citation – Abbreviated references for the most commonly used citations in the Toolkit.
• Bibliography – Bibliography of resources used in the creation and development of the Toolkit.
• People – List of all people involved in the project (including scenario authors, peer reviewers, research assistants...).