One of the Ukrainian cyber security officials said that Russian cyber attacks on important Ukrainian infrastructure could be considered war crimes.
Victor Zhora, chief digital transformation officer at the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine, said Russia launched cyber attacks coordinated with military attacks as part of its invasion of Ukraine.
"When we look at the situation in cyberspace, we realize that there is coordination between kinetic attacks and cyberattacks, and since the majority of kinetic attacks are directed against civilians -- as direct war crimes -- their acts of support in cyberspace can also be counted as war crimes," he explained. Zhora when interviewed by Politico, Wednesday (11/1/2023).
Currently the Ukrainian government is gathering evidence of cyber attacks connected to military attacks, and will report it to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, as one of Ukraine's steps to obtain foreign aid.
This appears to be the first time anyone has labeled a cyber attack on a country's infrastructure a war crime. Academics and researchers are already working on the same thing, and have asked the ICC to add cyberattacks to its investigation of the Ukraine war.
Zhora gave the example of Russia's attack on DTEK in July 2022, which is Ukraine's largest private energy company.
"Their geothermal power plants were attacked, and simultaneously, their corporate networks were attacked. This was an organized and planned activity from Russia, which they carried out both from the conventional domain and the cyber domain," said Zhora.
According to Zhora, this kind of attack also occurred in Odesa, Lviv and Mykolaiv, where "physical" attacks were supported by cyber attacks, for example local internet service providers were attacked so their services could not be used.
This kind of attack, according to Zhora, has a direct impact because it disrupts data services, IT infrastructure, power plants, telecommunication and important infrastructure. Even though this is needed by the citizens of Ukraine.
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