Cybersecurity Awareness Month

Humanitarian security in cyberspace

For decades, there has been consensus in the international community that in times of armed conflict, impartial humanitarian operations and the humanitarian personnel involved therein must not be targeted. In other words, you do not shoot at the truck that delivers food and medicine to civilians. This consensus must be respected online as well as offline, as recently affirmed in a resolution entitled ‘Safeguarding Humanitarian Data’ adopted by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The backbone of this consensus is enshrined in international humanitarian law (IHL).

In this post, the ICRC’s Tilman Rodenhäuser, Balthasar Staehelin, and Massimo Marelli explore how these rules impose limits on digital threats against impartial humanitarian organizations and propose legal, policy and operational measures to safeguard them against such threats.

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The human cost of cyber operations

If the risk of civilian harm from military cyber operations is to be reduced, it is necessary to consider how it can be assessed and measured. This blog presents the key takeaways from an ICRC report on Avoiding Civilian Harm from Military Cyber Operations During Armed Conflict.

Toy soldiers standing in front of some computer mainboard.

The use of cyber operations in armed conflict can have real humanitarian consequences. In this blog, ICRC Legal advisers illustrate the human cost of military cyber operations and argue that the seemingly technical issue of IHL applicability in cyberspace makes a difference in the real world.

Cybersecurity and data protection

The 2020 cyberattack on SolarWinds, a major US information technology company, demonstrated the chaos a hack can cause by targeting digital supply chain components. In this Review article, the author draws lessons from the hack and considers the way forward by drawing on the notion of "digital sovereignty".

In this blog, the authors analyze what elements a humanitarian organization should consider to operate in the cyber environment and the challenges and threats it faces therein. They also explore how an international humanitarian organization may need to develop operational dialogue with external stakeholders to deal with some of these challenges.

IHL and cyber operations

The Cyber Law Toolkit, the leading free online resource on international law and cyber operations, has just received its annual general update. Several new detailed scenarios inspired by real-world cyber incidents have been added to the Toolkit, including on cyber disruption of humanitarian assistance, contesting ongoing attacks through cyber means, or on extraterritorial incidental cyber harm.

world map hanging on top of New York City illustration.

The use of cyber operations during armed conflict has become a reality of armed conflicts and is likely to be more prominent in the future. This Review article analyzes pertinent humanitarian, legal and policy questions concerning cyber warfare. It emphasizes that cyber operations during armed conflicts, or cyber warfare, are regulated by IHL – just as is any weapon, means or methods of warfare used by a belligerent in a conflict, whether new or old.

Interactive experience: digital dilemmas

Black background with the text: Humanitarian crises, digital dilemmas

While digital technologies address challenges in humanitarian action, they also pose risks to the population if not used appropriately. How would you handle the Digital Dilemmas if you woke up to a humanitarian crisis? The website is now available in eight languages.