Recently, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a warning to states that are hostile to other states by conducting organized cyberattacks. In his interview with the media on the subject, he stated that a single serious attack would trigger the defense of the NATO Alliance. More specifically, as stated in Article 5, an attack against one ally is considered an attack against all.
Furthermore, Jens Stoltenberg threatens with a serious cyber strike any NATO state that activates Article 5 with its tactics. He also mentioned that a domain on the internet has already been created to enable NATO to protect itself as it does on land, water and air.
He did not hide his concern about the rapid development of cyberattacks against the alliance and stressed that suspicious activities are detected daily in NATO systems. Stoltenberg also stressed that their priority is to have proper training and preparation to avoid cyberattacks.
At this point, it is worth mentioning that Article 5 has only been activated once in years, after the September 11, 2001 attackson New York and the Pentagon.
Nationally, tensions have increased in recent years, following cyberattacks from Russia and China. In 2018, the UK government openly blamed Russia for the 2017 NotPetya ransomware . This ransomware primarily targeted Ukrainian government networks.
Unfortunately, various cyberattackshave also taken on military dimensions. In 2011, the United States warned that it had every right to retaliate with military operations in the event of a cyberattack. Israel carried out a military air strike in response to an attempted cyberattack launched by the terrorist group Hamas in May.
At the same time, in 2018 Donald Trump essentially relaxed the policy line that the US follow if it carries out a cyberattack on another nation.
The United Kingdom , on the other hand, in April 2018, made a public admission that it had carried out a cyberattack against the Islamic State terrorist group.
