Proposal for cyber war rules of engagement

[tantalus]

I chose this forum as I felt in fell under the subject matter of "cutting-edge military technological advancements", or perhaps it should go in the staff college, I am not sure, Moderators? previously I put such subject matter in science and tech but perhaps this is more suitable


Primary Objective - Discuss if there is a need for rules of engagement in cyber-warfare ?

Secondary Objective If so, in what basic form can and should it take?

Thoughts -
the article covers the issue well
- It would be intersting if anyone has knowledge on relevent case studies ( a limited list thus far I imagine) and the impact these had on civilians
- naturally warfare is designed to imact on ecomonics, the kind of negative civilian effects I am referring to are the functionality of hospitals and such, it would be unacceptable to bomb a hospital, but not to cripple an economy via conventional warfare, what of crippling a hospital via cyber warfare?
- what potential is there to discriminate between separate targets in cyber-warfare and to monitor, and assign blame for such attacks

The world needs cyber war "Rules of Engagement" to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and US experts will tell world leaders at a security conference on Friday.

The cyber proposal, seen exclusively by Newsnight, comes from the influential EastWest Institute in New York.

It describes "rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace".

Well-placed British government sources say they do not see a need for new international "treaties" for cyberspace, but do concede that there are areas that need discussion, especially on attribution.

full article - BBC News - Newsnight - Proposal for cyber war rules of engagement

on another note - a recent OECD report found that the current dangers of cyberwarfare are over hyped http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sci...ecd-study.html

[highsea]

...on another note - a recent OECD report found that the current dangers of cyberwarfare are over hyped http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sci...ecd-study.html

I wonder how overhyped. Stuxnet was the first cyberattack that was directly targeted at destroying infrastructure, and it took out 20% of their centrifuges while the control boards were telling the operators everything was just fine.

That's a pretty successful attack.

Up till then cyberwarfare was mostly aimed at stealing data, and a couple network attacks in eastern europe.

Cyberattacks will only go up, and they will get more sophisticated as they go. Countries need to be able to deal with them. I don't know how you would enforce any cyberwar rules though, they are by definition sneak attacks.