Understanding The Fine Line Between Cyberattackers & Hacktivists

 

When it comes to warfare, we all have been accustomed to the traditional ways of land, air, and sea battles.  But there is now a new kind of warfare that is going on, and that is the Cyberwarfare.  There is really nothing new about this per se, but given the recent conflicts in Israel and the Ukraine, it has elevated to much newer heights and has taken on even a stronger sense of urgency.

Cyberwarfare is not just about nation state threat actors going to combat with the governments of other countries.  Now, it is targeting innocent civilians.  True, many of the Cyberattacks that do occur are from typically overseas (such as Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc.), but these are more targeted ones with a specific victim in mind. 

With the new kind fo Cyberwarfare, citizens of countries are being targeted en masse, with multiple attacks being placed on them.  In fact, it has gotten so bad, that the International Committee of the Red Cross (also known as the “ICRC”) has come up with a guiding set of principles that is designed to minimize as much as possible civilian casualties.

The goal here is to identify and distinguish who a true combatant is versus an innocent bystander.  Here is what the ICRC came up with:

Ø  Do not direct cyberattacks against civilian objects.

 

Ø  Do not use malware or other tools or techniques that spread automatically and damage military objectives and civilian objects indiscriminately.

 

Ø  When planning a cyberattack against a military objective, do everything feasible to avoid or minimize the effects your operation may have on civilians.

 

Ø  Do not conduct any cyber operation against medical and humanitarian facilities.

 

Ø  Do not conduct any cyberattack against objects indispensable to the survival of the population or that can release dangerous forces.

 

Ø  Do not make threats of violence to spread terror among the civilian population.

 

Ø  Do not incite violations of international humanitarian law.

 

Ø  Comply with these rules even if the enemy does not.

 

(SOURCE:  https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/establishing-new-rules-cyber-warfare)

It is important to keep in mind that this set of guiding principles is still very new, and the intended groups that this message has been designed to resonate with are nor only just the Cyberattacker ones, but also the so called “Hacktivists”.  You don’t hear this term too often, so here is a technical definition of it:

“Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or breaking into a computer system, for politically or socially motivated purposes. The individual who performs an act of hacktivism is said to be a hacktivist. The hacktivist who does such acts, such as defacing an organization’s website or leaking that organization’s information, aims to send a message through their activities and gain visibility for a cause they are promoting.”

(SOURCE:  https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/threat-prevention/what-is-hacktivism/)

So while the Cyberattacker is fueled by the ambition of money, the Hacktivist is much more motivated by political reasons to launch threat vectors.  However, the unfortunate news is that not a lot of these groups are expected to advocate the work advanced by the ICRC.  But in the long run, it is hoped that these eight principles can be used to bring Hacktivists to justice, in a court of law. 

The ICRC designed these principles to match up with international humanitarian laws, most notably those set forth in the Geneva Convention.  One anticipated drawback of all of this is that it will be extremely hard to distinguish between the real combatants and the innocent civilians. 

But at least this framework is a good start, and the ICRC should be highly commended for launching this effort.  Hopefully all of the known nation state threat actors will realize the gravity of the situation when they target innocent civilians.  More details on this initiative can be seen at the link below:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66998064