Abstract

Cyber warfare represents new kinds of weapons in the present era that have the potential to change the battlefields. The different nature of these types of weapons and their ability to create massive and widespread damage to critical infrastructure of a state, subject the traditional means of resort to force to change and is indicative of the importance that the international community must come to some consensus on the meaning of cyber warfare with in the existing jus ad bellum paradigm and legislate its governing rules, On the other hand, the inherent rights of victim states in self-defense must be supported and by detailed explanations of the governing rules for the method of attribution of responsibility to governments committing cyber-attacks, actions must be taken to prevent escape of these governments from the consequences of their illegal actions. In fact, in this article with an analytical method we will examine the issue of whether cyber attacks could be considered as an armed attack trigger the right to self defense for victim states.

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