Forcible Responses to Cyber Operations: Self-Defence, Necessity, Countermeasures

States harbour a great concern about the increasing frequency and growing danger of malicious cyber operations directed at State and non-State cyber infrastructure employed in various sectors from security to economy and public health to energy. In the face of malicious activities in or through cyberspace, the issue for the international community is to determine how international law applies in the cyber context and the international law remedies available to the victim State. The present study surveys the permissible self-help responses that may involve forcible action