What Happened?
Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Red cross and many others have noticed the proliferation of Patriotic Cyber-gangs whose efforts have escalated largely after tensions boiled over in Ukraine. The ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) has pushed forward 8 new rules for hacktivists and cyberwarfare. With these new rules in place there are risks in hacking to violating international human law and could expose those hackers to being prosecuted as criminals or terrorists.
The 8 New rules Red Cross has imposed:
- Do not direct cyber-attacks* against civilian objects.
- Do not use malware or other tools or techniques that spread automatically and damage military objectives and civilian objects indiscriminately.
- When planning a cyber-attack against a military objective, do everything feasible to avoid or minimize the effects your operation may have on civilians.
- Do not conduct any cyber operation against medical and humanitarian facilities.
- Do not conduct any cyber-attack against objects indispensable to the survival of the population or that can release dangerous forces.
- Do not make threats of violence to spread terror among the civilian population.
- Do not incite violations of international humanitarian law.
- Comply with these rules even if the enemy does not.
The Response:
However, many hacktivist groups and known organizations are not taking this well, with responses like such of that from Anonymous Sudan that said, “The rules are not viable and that breaking them for the group’s cause is unavoidable”. Or The IT Army of Ukraine had responded as well “Adhering to the rules can place one party at a disadvantage”
Our Hopes:
As warfare is, some things cannot be changed in a day, but targeting critical infrastructure and civilian targets should have to be considered, in the following weeks and months we will see the outcomes of these new rules being pushed and hopefully implemented. As the International committee of the Red Cross may carry some weight as to whether breaking these newly imposed rules will lead to hacktivists and organizations becoming military targets.
