Proposal for Cyber War Rules of Engagement

In an article by Susan Watts, of BBC Newsnight, published February 3, 2011, it appears that cyber security and specific rules of engagement in dealing with a cyber attack will, for the first time, be considered at this year's annual Munich Security Conference.  

"The world needs cyber war 'Rules of Engagement' to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and U.S. experts will tell world leaders at [the Munich Security Conference] on Friday." 

According to the article, "those attending the confernece this year include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chanceloor Angela Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russuan Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov."  

The EastWest Institute, on behalf of the Russia-U.S. Bilateral on Critical Infrastructure Protection, has prepared a report entitled "Working Towards Rules for Governing Cyber Conflict: Rendering the Geneva and Hague Conventions in Cyberspace," which will be presented at the 2011 Munich Security Conference.  The report calls for "a fresh definition of 'nation state,' with new 'territories' and players in cyberspace beyond government – such as multinationals, NGOs and citizens."  The report also identifies the ambiguity in "what constitutes cyber conflict [as the cause of] delay[ed] international policy."

Among the topics to be discussed at the Conference, and which are highlighted by the report, are discrimination (i.e. discerning between civilian and military targets) and attribution (that is, to whom can we attribute an attack, and then respond accordingly).  Furthermore, the article states that "[t]he nature of cyber space, with its ease of anonymity and use of proxies, makes the attribution of any attack very difficult. This raises the question of proportionality:

How strongly should a state respond to an attack when you do not know who did it, where they did it from or what the intention was?  In conventional military terms, these questions are easier to answer – not so in the cyber world."

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The full article from BBC Newsnight can be found at the link provided above, or here.  The EastWest Institute's Report can be found at the link above, or here.