Page 195 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

Historical and Legal Aspects of Cyber Attacks on Critical
Infrastructure
Andrej Iliev, Ferdinand Odzakov

The development of cyber attacks follows three major historical periods: first follows the
technological advances of information technology during the 1980’s until the end of the Cold
War in 1990, second is from the end of the Cold War to the terrorist attacks in United States
2001 and the third is onwards. Each historical period followed a specific doctrine and strat-
egy of dealing with national security threats from cyberspace. The world’s super-powers and
states, introduced appropriate strategies and national policies to deal with the consequences
of this type of warfare.

The term “cyberspace” and “cyber attack” were first presented from American author William
Gibson in 1982. In the following years, this word turned out to be conspicuously related to
online PC systems. According to NATO, people are part of cyberspace. NATO defines that
cyberspace is more than just the internet, and includes not only hardware, software and infor-
mation systems, but also peoples and their social interaction on these networks. The first cyber
warfare weapon was Stuxnet, whose objective was to physically annihilate a military target.
Stuxnet contaminated more than 60,000 PCs around the world, mostly in Iran.

While international cooperation is essential, in the near future each nation should develop its
own national foundation, national cyber security strategy, authorities and capabilities. Every
nation state should require effective coordination and cooperation between governmental en-
tities at the national and sub-national levels, as well as in the private sector and civil society.
The main focus of this paper is to present the historical development of cyber attacks on criti-
cal infrastructure, and accordingly to propose best legal concepts, doctrines and strategies for
dealing with cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.

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