State Responsibility in the Cyber Age: The Course towards Indirect Evidence

Abstract

The problem of attributing responsibility for cyber-attacks is almost as old
as cyberspace itself, yet it remains one of the most troublesome issues of
that domain. It is often impossible to uncover direct evidence that would
reveal the identities of the attackers. Investigators must therefore rely on
other, more indirect avenues of proof. The aim of this exploratory study is to
develop a basic categorisation of indirect evidence that can be used to
attribute state responsibility for cyber-attacks in international relations. To
do so, the article works with international legal concepts but transposes
them into the analysis of international relations. The categorization of
indirect proof is based on the Russian-Georgian conflict of 2008, which
provides one of the richest arrays of this kind of evidence. The analysis
identifies four kinds of indirect evidence: level of coordination, level of
preparedness, state relations with the national hacker community, and
state conception of cyber-security.