NATO updates its cyber defense policy

PanARMENIAN.Net - NATO has updated its cyber defense policy to make it clear that a cyber attack can be treated as the equivalent of an attack with conventional weapons, ZDNet reports.

The organization’s new cyber defense policy clarifies that a digital attack on a member state is covered by Article 5, the collective defense clause. That states that an attack against one member of NATO "shall be considered an attack against them all" and opens the way for members to take action against the aggressor — including the use of armed force — to restore security.

Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges said: "For the first time we state explicitly that the cyber realm is covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the collective defense clause. We don't say in exactly which circumstances or what the threshold of the attack has to be to trigger a collective NATO response and we don't say what that collective NATO response should be."

"This will be decided by Allies on a case by case basis; but we established a principle that at a certain level of intensity of damage, malicious intention, a cyber attack could be treated as the equivalent of an armed attack," he added, according to ZDNet.

The new policy has been approved by NATO defense minister and will be endorsed at its Wales summit in September. Other elements of the policy will help improve information sharing and mutual assistance between allies, bolster NATO's cyber defense training and exercises, and boost cooperation with industry.

"It takes account of the fact that all of the major international crises that we've seen recently looking at Georgia, Syria and now Ukraine have a rather big and ongoing cyber dimension which shows that a lot of sophisticated methods and techniques are being employed," Shea said.

"It's certainly meant as a deterrent. It's not meant to be escalatory but a signal that NATO is not defending itself only in 20th century terms."

A number of NATO members – most notably the U.S. and the UK — have been building up their cyberwarfare capabilities over the last few years, including their ability to attack adversaries by digital means as well as defend themselves. However, because of the unusual nature of cyber weapons — in that they are mostly sophisticated pieces of malware built on obscure zero-day flaws in commercial software — it's hard to use them as a deterrent, ZDNet says.