The Washington Foreign Law Society
Presents
How Do You “Know” Who Did It – and Then What? The Challenges of Cyber Accountability
Thursday, November 4th, 2021
from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM ET
– This event is jointly organized with the Stimson Center –
This year, the US, UK, Canada, and others, including NATO, accused Russia of being behind SolarWinds, a malware attack compromising the integrity of government and company servers. Also this year, Microsoft accused a Chinese state-sponsored group Hafnium of using zero-day exploits to attack versions of Microsoft Exchange Server to target disease researchers, think tanks and even law firms. Governments and cyber experts have identified nation-state groups and specific individuals many times as the attackers, but using legal norms and laws to tame the Cyber Wild West has many challenges, which President Biden’s new global initiative to address ransomware will have to face.
Join the Washington Foreign Law Society and the Stimson Center in this fifth in a series of discussions dissecting cyber issues as they relate to current and potential legal accountability: Cyber Accountability – Who did it? Is it wrong? Can they be stopped?
Featured speakers:
- Dmitri Alperovitch (Executive Chairman, Silverado Policy Accelerator)
- Dr. Els De Busser (Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity Governance, Leiden University)
The program will be moderated by Debra Decker, Board Member of the Washington Foreign Law Society and Stimson Center Senior Advisor. Michael Teodori, President of the Washington Foreign Law Society, will open the discussion.
Dmitri Alperovitch is Executive Chairman at Silverado Policy Accelerator; Co-Founder and Former CTO at CrowdStrike; Board Member of Automox, Dragos, and other organizations. Alperovitch is a thought-leader on cybersecurity strategy and state tradecraft and has served as special advisor to the Department of Defense. He is a frequent strategic advisor to CEOs and Boards of Directors of public and private companies. Alperovitch is also an active angel investor and board member of multiple high-growth technology companies. He has been named as one of Fortune Magazine's “40 Under 40” most influential young people in business, and Politico Magazine has featured Alperovitch as one of “Politico 50” influential thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics. In 2013, Alperovitch received the prestigious recognition of being selected as MIT Technology Review’s “Young Innovators under 35” (TR35). He has called for more aggressive measures to counter cyberattacks.
Dr. Els De Busser is Assistant Professor Cybersecurity Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University and a researcher with The Hague Program for Cyber Norms. She teaches courses on a broad range of topics including digital justice, data protection and privacy, legal aspects of cyber security and European criminal law. She specializes in multidisciplinary education and research. De Busser conducts research on these topics and is the Principal Investigator for the Dutch Research Council (NWO)-funded project Cyber Security by Integrated Design (the C-SIDe project). She is also a member of the Standing Committee of Experts on International Immigration, Refugee and Criminal Law (also known as the Meijers Committee). She is a co-author of “Three tales of attribution in cyberspace. Criminal law, international law and policy debates.”
We are grateful to our panelists and audience who provided relevant links.
Discussed:
Silverado Policy Accelerator and the Alperovitch Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Russian attacks won’t stop unless Biden keeps the pressure on Putin
Putin has bedeviled American presidents. Biden can learn from their mistakes.
Three Tales of Attribution in Cyberspace
The Hague Program for Cyber Norms and its November conference on cyber The Hague Program for Cyber Norms - News & Events (thehaguecybernorms.nl)
Recent Russia-US Talks: Rivals on World Stage, Russia and U.S. Quietly Seek Areas of Accord - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Civil suit exemption to US’ Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for State Sponsors of Terrorism
Learn more:
ICT4Peace Proposed “States Cyber Peer Review Mechanism” for state-conducted foreign cyber operations
Carnegie Endowment’s Timeline of Emerging Norms for Cyberspace
First Committee of the UN General Assembly (reachingcriticalwill.org)
Also of interest:
China Wields New Legal Weapon to Fight Claims of Intellectual Property Theft - WSJ
MITRE ATT&CK® knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques