Modelling Attribution Clause Samples

Modelling Attribution. In August 2012, the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ malware infected the computers of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Aramco, and prevented 30,000 computers from starting by over-writing a segment of their hard drive.106 The attack prompted US Secretary of Defense, ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, to discuss the attack in a well-noted speech in front of business executives, and to answer further questions in a briefing at the Pentagon.107 While ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ fell short in his speech of accusing Iran of the attacks, a journalist, quoting an unnamed US government official, claimed that Iranian hackers carried out the attack with support from the Iranian government.108 Officially, the attack remains unattributed to this day. In comparison, a great deal of other malware has in the past infected a significantly larger number of computers without prompting high political officials to react regarding the identity of the instigators. For instance, in 2004, the ▇▇▇▇▇▇ worm infected millions of 106 Part of this chapter is from: ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 'Modelling Attribution' (paper presented at the 12th European Conference on Information Warfare and Security, Jyväskylä, 11-12 July 2013). 107 'Text of Speech by Secretary of Defense ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇', (New York: 2012); ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 'News Briefing', Departement of Defense, 25 October 2012. 108 The Associated Press, 'Official: US blames Iran hackers for cyberattacks', The Washington Post, 11 October 2012. computers, including those of rail systems in New South Wales, the Italian Interior Ministry, the European Commission, and British coastguard stations without prompting such a response.109 The police later found its author, ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, thanks to an information reward programme set up by Microsoft.110 The attribution of these two different cyber attacks presents several stringent dissimilarities, which raise several notable questions: How and why does the attribution of an incident become the resort of the executive rather than the judiciary? How does the process of attributing a criminal incident and attributing a national security incident differ? This chapter offers a two-pronged model for attribution, based on the nature of the process either as criminal or as a threat to national security. Criminal cases rarely rise to the level of ‘national threat’, and are mostly dealt by law enforcement agencies and subsequently by judiciary organisations. Several cases, based on certain criteria, become the resort of the executive rather than the judiciar...