Spectrum of State Responsibility

"Attribution" for digital attacks and incidents is a hot topic right now. I wanted to point readers to this great paper by Jason Healey at the Atlantic Council titled Beyond Attribution: Seeking National Responsibility in Cyberspace.

ACUS published the report in February, but I'm not hearing anyone using the terms described therein. Probably my favorite aspect of the paper is the chart pictured at left. It offers a taxonomy for describing state involvement in digital attacks, ranging from "state-prohibited" to "state-integrated."

I recommend using the chart and ideas in the paper as a starting point the next time you have a debate over digital attribution.


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