Kibernetinės atakos ir valstybių teisė į savigyną ; Cyber attacks and state's right to self-defence

Abstract

The topic of the Master's thesis is – "Cyber Attacks and State's Right to Self-Defence". The aim of the Master's thesis is to reveal the problematic aspects of cyber attacks and also the difficulty which arrises when trying to qualify cyber attacks as an armed attack, which whould trigger state's right to self-defense. The main sources of information that were used in writting the thesis are as follows: various scientific articles by information security engineers, books of various foreign authors regarding state's right to self-defense, use of force, armed attacks and it's qualifying measures. The most important source of information used - was Tallinn Manual 2.0, which examines international law governing cyber warfare and how it's norms regulate the use of force in international relations. First structural part of the thesis is covering the historical aspects of the topic. It analyses the main concept of the work – cyber attacks. History, development, peculiarities of the concept and cyber attack clasification among other things are examined in the first part. The largest attention is given to the changes of cyber attacks throughout the years, rising danger which it brings and newly arrising problematics of the attacks, as well as how it changes governmental perseption towards it. The second part of the master's thesis is dedicated to the analysis of state's right to self-defense and cyber attacks in the context of that. The second part of the thesis is the more important part, as it concludes the analysed material and compares cryteria of different findings. First half of the second part is regarding the problematic aspects of the state's right to self-defense, various examples as well as the concept of the armed attack and its criteria. The second half of the second part takes the attention to cyber attacks in the context of armed attack, which could trigger states right to self-defense from the mentioned cyber attacks.