Developing a Proportionate Response to a Cyber Attack

Abstract

The debate on both the impacts of cyber attacks and how to response to attacks is active but precedents are only a few. Strategies and political speeches are always (at least partially) declaratory and vague by nature, and beyond these declarations the practical reality of cyber security as a matter of national security issue is challenging. At the same time cyber issues have catapulted into the highest of the high politics, cyberpolitics, and the line of digital and physical is blurring in many ways. Primary intention of this paper is to encourage the national policies concerning on the issue of how cyber attacks should be treated and lead to policies for response. The paper determinates five variables which policymakers need to consider when evaluating appropriate response to a state-sponsored cyber attack. As offensive cyber activity becomes more prevalent, policymakers will be challenged to develop proportionate responses to disruptive or destructive attacks. Already, there has been significant pressure to “do something” in light of the allegedly state-sponsored attacks. Proportionate response is a complicated political question and also situational dependent. This paper analyses in a comprehensive way how cyber attacks will be treated especially as a political question, and this paper represents a rough example of the framework that policymakers should build on.