LABScon Replay | Are Digital Technologies Eroding the Principle of Distinction in War?

Until now, the cyber capabilities of a State have been primarily assessed on a technical and tactical perspective: the coordination of APT teams, the quality of malware, and the sophistication of exploits, to give some examples. However, describing such cyber operations is no longer sufficient to understand the capabilities that States deploy in the digital sphere during armed conflicts.

Cyber activities are part of a broader context, the digital one. Armies in conflict are increasingly digitized as are the involved populations. States may encourage civilians to engage in offensive cyber operations against targets associated with the enemy or encourage users to contribute to the military effort.

In this presentation, One Click from Conflict: Are Digital Technologies Eroding the Principle of Distinction in War?, the ICRC’s Mauro Vignati discusses how technology has completely transformed the way civilians live through armed conflicts.

In recent conflicts, smartphones and apps especially have become weaponized, slowly removing traditional barriers that divide the roles of civilians and combatants. Mauro breaks down the dangers and consequences of this paradigm shift and discusses what states and private organizations can do to stop technological weaponization from harming civilians caught in wartime.

One Click from Conflict: Are Digital Technologies Eroding the Principle of Distinction in War?: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

One Click from Conflict: Are Digital Technologies Eroding the Principle of Distinction in War?: this mp4 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Mauro Vignati:

Hi everyone. Thank you for having. Oh.

Mauro Vignati:

ICRC today, International Red Cross. So just

look at who knows, who knows what we do and

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who we are. Just raise your hand. Okay.

Mauro Vignati:

So just to refresh the memory. So we are an

international organization, a humanitarian

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organization. We are based in Geneva,

Switzerland. So our mandate is to provide

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humanitarian help and help victims of armed

conflict in relief operations. And when there

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is a need.

So and you start to think about why we are

here, right? What is doing humanitarian

organization here? So it’s because we are

seeing with the digitalization of societies

there is an increase, a transformation of how

the wars are fought. So states are adding

more and more digital means and methods to

their arsenal. And one of the worst trends we

are seeing nowadays is that digital

technologies are bringing civilians and

private sector technology companies into the

battlefield. So when I talk about private

companies, I mean cybersecurity companies,

technology companies that are bringing into

the battlefield. So one of the most important

principles in ICRC is international

humanitarian law. This is a body of law. And

one of the most important principles in this

law is that we define two main groups of

individuals and objects.

So the first one is the combatants, and the

military objectives and the competence are

the people that are fighting on behalf of an

army. And the second group are the civilians

and then civilians objects.

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And they should refrain from the resource.

They should refrain to a combat to go in the

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battlefield, and thus they should be

protected against the arms and dangers that

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the war is producing.

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So this is the principle of distinction. So

we have to distinguish between who is

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fighting the war and the rest of the

population.

So and this shift in the digital

technologies, so is bringing us to a to a

qualitative aspect, 1 to 1 qualitative

aspect, one quantitative one. So from the

qualitative perspective, so the

digitalization of societies is bringing some

some effect. One of them is that this

lowering the threshold of entering the

battlefield. So with some exaggeration, we

can say that everyone with a smartphone

nowadays can join the battlefield and do

something for an army to a conflict. And the

other perspective is that is also modifying

completely, modifying the sense of remoteness

that we have. So we can sit in our couch and

we can participate to to the battlefield on

the other side of of the planet. And from a

quantitative perspective is that the states

can scale up a massive amount of civilians to

do what they need to do, like hundreds of

thousands of civilians regrouping them in

hours, in days to be able to fight for them.

And another perspective is the expansion of

the attack surface. So the same smartphone

that they can use to attack could be also a

victim of of of an attack.

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So it’s not just the smartphone, laptop,

computer server, whatever. So the attack

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surface is way bigger than what we have in

the physical world. So this brings us to the

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civilization. So we call the civilization of

the battlefield. So based on that, let’s have

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a couple of scenarios to better explain the

situation and the challenges we are facing

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here.

So the first scenario is about states that

may encourage civilians to engage in

offensive cyber operations against targets

associated with the enemy. So it’s the states

that is asking its own civilians to

participate to a conflict in the digital

battlefield. So this has multiple advantages

for a state so individual can be easily

mobilized and coordinated. So as I said

before, you can put together hundreds of

thousands of people to fight in your name and

you can federate all already existing

activists that they can be deployed for, for

your purpose and all those characteristics

that bring us to this lower cost for entering

the battlefield and for the states to fight

in the battlefield because they can use the

civilians to do this work. So this is the

first scenario we are talking about. The

second scenario is

that the states may repurpose existing

e-government apps or create new ones that

will be used for the battlefield.

Mauro Vignati:

So here we are talking. In about two states

that are provide an app that you can use to,

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for instance, take a picture of a tank of the

enemy and then send them back to a to the to

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the army, to the Central Command and control

and be used for the effort on the on the

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kinetic side. So this has multiple advantages

from the state’s perspective because you are

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tapping into an existing community of digital

citizens.

So can you imagine if you if you have a new

government app that is being used by three or

four or 5 million of people that some point,

you transform, you enhance this application

providing new methods in the application, and

then you provide these applications, this new

version of applications to already three or

four or five million people that are already

using these applications. So they are tapping

into this kind of situation. So this means

that you don’t need any training for the

people that are using the application because

they are already used using these

applications. So it’s everything. We open

download, take a picture, and send the

picture. This is a normal gesture we do

daily, so no training is required. This also

means that there is no latency. You don’t

have to train military people on the ground.

You just have civilians in the in the digital

battlefield that can adapt and use this

application in a very quick way.

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And this means that the civilians are

becoming sensor sensors to the army, not just

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for intelligence purposes, but for any other

kind of activity that the state would like to

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start in in the digital battlefield. This

brings us to a third scenario where we have

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the presence of technology companies, and

cybersecurity companies. And so, generally

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speaking, private companies are jumping into

the digital battlefield.

So as you may know, I mean, the majority of

the networks are owned or managed by private

companies and they are also managing asset

that our military asset, not only civilian

assets. So when war start those companies,

they are inside the battlefield because they

are already providing support or they are

managing the networks of those governmental

bodies. So this may bring us to the

characteristic of that. Those companies are

defending against deliberate cyber attacks.

If you are already providing this kind of

situation to a to governmental bodies, you

find yourself in in defending against

deliberate cyber attacks and you share threat

intelligence with government bodies, with

states that are at the moment in war. So

those are the three scenarios of how

civilians and and private companies are

involved in the battlefield. And these are,

first a first batch of consideration about

the situation that we are expecting we are

seeing since the moment. So apt so state

sponsored cyber attack is not the only way to

assess no more, the only way to assess state

capabilities in the digital sphere.

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So we have a lot of more digital means and

method that has to be integrated when we do

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an analysis of the capacity of a state in

these in this sector. The second one is that

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the private company of civilians are now

playing a preponderant role in the conflict.

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What I mean with this is that when an army is

losing visibility or capability on the on the

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on the battle ground, they can use civilians

to regain this visibility, this capability,

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and even surpass the capability of a state in

the battlefield. So the consideration is that

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we are assisting a civilization of the

battlefield that is is is a trend since the

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moment now.

And this is a worrisome trend because we are

bringing civilians into the battlefield. So a

second a second package of of considerations

that we still lack this cognitive process. So

what does it mean? It means that we are far

from from the battlefield, but at the same

time, we are in the battlefield using digital

means. So this is a distance between what we

are leaving and what we are doing. So these

kinds of process is something that we are

still lacking nowadays, even after 30, 40

years, that we are using it and still lacking

of cognitive process. And this brings us to

the perception of anonymity where we are

running a DDoS attack using a VPN, we think

to be anonymous from our couch or we do this

and that.

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So this is perpetrating the anonymity and

with this also the sense of impunity. We

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think nobody will find me because I’m using

all the security measures that I can put in

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place to not be seen.

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So another is the performative nudging of the

state. What does it mean? Does it mean that

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the the state, when is there enhancing and

modifying application? Is proportionately to

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be gentle, pushing the civilians to adopt

this application that is already on their

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phone to use this application for for war

reason so and these performative because as

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soon as these new capacity is is put in in a

new application and push on the store and

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then push on the phones is use very quick.

So this is performative so the speed of

integration we already said so this very fast

how to integrate civilians into the

battlefield. And then we have the involvement

of private companies that are doing the

normal business in peaceful time, that at

some point they find themselves into the

battlefield. And the third group of

consideration is are civilians and private

companies directly participating in

hostilities? So this is the most important

part are people that are doing this kind of

business, participating in hostilities. So we

see three communities characteristic to be

declared as participating in the cities.

Mauro Vignati:

So this is just a way to explain you how it

is. I am not saying that one scenario or the

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other is direct participating in stating the

three scenarios that were seen before. We can

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say that depending from case to case could be

considered as participating in hostilities.

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But normally we should look at these three

cumulative aspects.

So one is the threshold of harm. So it means

that if you run, if you do this act, you

provide a you have an impact on the military

operation of a party to the conflict. So

there is a real impact of what you are doing.

The second one is the belligerent nexus is

knowing that if you have designed the act to

be to reach the threshold of harm.

So if there is a desire of designing this,

this act for providing this harm, and the

second the third one is that the direct

causation I mean, if we can know that from

the act that you are doing the the harm is

provided by your intervention.

So those are the three characteristics. So if

you are if you have this three characteristic

in the act that you are performing, you

probably participating in in a armed

conflict. So there are other characteristics

that we have to look at before saying that.

One of the other scenario is direct

participation in your city. What we are

saying is the temporary consideration for

such time.

Mauro Vignati:

So it does mean that so in our perspective,

ICRC perspective, if a civilian is opening an

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application and taking a picture or doing a

DDOS attack and then closing the application,

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only during that time a civilian could be and

say could be considering as participating in

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hostilities as soon as you closed the

application is not is not more considered as

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participating in stating some critics of our

will saying that this is too easy for

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civilians to go in the battlefield and go out

from the battlefield. So a kind of a

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revolving door, but again, case by case.

And then there is the territorial

consideration. Are you performing your act

from inside the battleground or from outside?

So are you doing this stuff from outside the

battlefield? So these are all the different

perspective that we’re going to check. After

all, what are the consequences of everything

here? So the first consequence, if you are so

directly participating, is that you are not

entitled to have the prisoner of war status

if you don’t have this title because you are

a civilian participating in hostilities. You

may lose immunity from domestic prosecution.

And I explain myself. So let’s imagine you

are attacking country with your means and at

some point the war is over and then some

years later you want to travel for for

vacation to this country. You could be

prosecuted in this country because you

participated in hostilities and then you have

no immunity for that.

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So this means also that you lose protection

from attacks. And when we talk about attacks,

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we is not just cyber attack, but also

physical attack. So someone that is

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participating in society could lose the

protection from being attacked, although on a

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physical on a physical way. So the

consequences for the states so states have

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mandatory it’s mandatory for the state to

verify if one person that is participating to

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a soldier is a combatant, is a civilian.

So distinguish what we said before, the the

principle of distinction for for the for the

states. The second one is the obligation of

cost and care. So this means that the states

have the obligation to help civilians to to

provide precaution to the civilians. But this

is absolutely in tension with the fact that

that states are nudging or pushing civilians

into the battlefield, how you can nudge and

push civilians on the battlefield. And the

same time, be sure to to provide cost and

care to the civilian.

The third one is that states have to respect

international humanitarian law. And the

reason are the law international human rights

law. So the right to life and such, such a

body of law that is fundamental. Also when we

talk about the territoriality of of the

battlefield. And so another consequence is

this time for the private companies is that

as the civilian is the possible loss of

protection from being attacked.

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So even tech companies that are involved in

the battlefield, they could face this

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situation if they are engaging in DPH for one

of the other party to the conflict.

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And one very interesting point is that tech

and cybersecurity company property may become

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a military objective. So let’s imagine you

have a platform for sharing intelligence with

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the government body that this government is

involved in, in a in a in a in a war. And you

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provide a cyber threat, intelligence to this

to this state through a platform. This

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platform could become NSA could because

again, depend from case to case could become

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a military objective of an army to the

conflict. So this platform could be disrupted

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by one of the other parties to the conflict.

And so this brings us also to the territory

consideration that we have seen for

civilians. So it depends from my perspective,

from international maritime law, there is no

difference if you are doing this from inside

a battlefield territory or outside. But there

are other body of law, like human rights law,

that are taking in consideration territorial

territorial consideration for for this. And

technology and cybersecurity companies could

also be considered as an organized armed

group. Again here exception and case by case.

But it is possible that the tech companies

that is providing a defensive capability or

even active defensive capability could be

considered as organized armed group by to one

of the army, one of the ambit of the

conflict.

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So these you can imagine the consequence of

being considered an organized group. These

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bring us to the conclusion. So the first one

about the civilians. So I just put this point

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civilian must be aware. So we’re not talking

anymore here on taking down a server of a

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ransomware group or snitching to a C2 of a

state sponsor of an APT group.

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So we are talking about participating in a

conflict. This is changing completely. The

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situation where you are involved.

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You have to be aware of what you’re doing

when you when you type on your keyboard and

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be sure what you’re doing here, because you

can be attacked again with distinction in

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case by case, but you can have a kinetic and

non-kinetic answer to what you’re doing.

The second conclusion is for the states. So

we stress the fact that the states have to

respect the principle of distinction between

civilians and combatants is very important

and is something that is is very worrisome

because we seen a fusion between the two

groups. And if you are really bringing

civilians into the battlefield, please

prioritize harmless form of civilian

involvement, like, I don’t know, rebuilding,

disrupt the connections or setting up servers

or whatever, not using civilians for the aim

of of of the war.

Mauro Vignati:

The third one is provide civilians the

information. So as soon as the state is

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providing all the information to civilians

saying, hey, you can do this and that, if you

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do the other, you take responsibility for

your act, At least the state. It could be

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said that he provided all the information

useful for civilians to judge the situation.

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Logically comply with their duties, so with

the natural and human rights law. So we said

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before that we see a tension here between the

duty and the and what in reality is happening

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and the obligation, of course, care.

We have talked before, so do not involve

civilians, had civilians against these

civilians of the battlefield and try to

reverse the civilian ization of the

battlefield. So this trend must be stopped

because we are seeing more and more tech

companies, more and more civilians into the

battlefield and latest for the companies. So

we think that companies need more awareness

in training in international humanitarian

law. So we had a discussion with several tech

companies and cybersecurity companies on this

topic and they open their eyes are where we

were not aware about this. So this is very

important that they start to have an

awareness in training and then prevent target

mistakes. So when you do offensive offensive

security or something like that, just be sure

if you shut down a command and control that

this command and control is a military

dedicated command and control is not a dual

use command and control that is used also for

civilian purposes and proactively inform as a

company what you are doing to avoid being

attacked.

Mauro Vignati:

So if you are doing protection or whatever,

just let the world know what you’re doing

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during the conflict. And you should also

develop compliance in your companies and say,

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Hey, how are we doing the right? How are we

now shifting to be a participant in the right

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to a conflict or not?

So you have to be aware what you are doing

during this period and then try to lobby to

assure that civilian data should be protected

as civilian asset. So till now, the civilian

data do not have the same level of protection

as a civilian asset. So we advocate of

considering civilian data protected as

civilian asset, because when you disrupt

civilian, you can cause a very harmful

situation for civilians.

And most important stuff, we discuss all this

the other day with an attack against a

satellite infrastructure, try to do

segmentation of of the asset that you are

providing to a government. So if a government

wants to have an asset from your company, try

to split between civilian body of the

government and military body of the

government so that when there is a war

exploding and someone is trying to attack

those assets, is going to focus on the

military. One Thank you. One take question.

Speaker2:

Tomorrow. We have time for questions.

Quickly, quickly. Just get your hands.

Speaker3:

Hi there. Thanks. Really enjoyed the talk.

Just one kind of question. It seemed like an

Speaker3:

overarching theme in this is that there’s

sort of a dual use nature to all of this

Speaker3:

stuff that the you know, like you said, like

a cloud provider could be supporting a

Speaker3:

military, could also be supporting civilian

businesses. And from a defenders perspective,

Speaker3:

you know, threats, although they can be

nation state, they can be non nation state,

Speaker3:

whatever. You might just not care as a

defender and you just want to protect your

Speaker3:

own system. So I guess because that

distinction is hard on both sides, I think.

Speaker3:

Do you see any room or what specifically

would you see like on a maybe on a policy

Speaker3:

side or regulatory framework side that could

help clarify that and help like deal with

Speaker3:

these dual use technologies in a way that

helps distinguish civilian and military

Speaker3:

objectives?

Mauro Vignati:

I’m thinking about if you. Thank you for the

question and thinking about if you have a

Mauro Vignati:

contract with the government as from the

starting point, you have to define if there

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is a military asset, is this a civilian

asset? So you have to be to be open with the

Mauro Vignati:

government and saying what the purpose of of

of our help here, what kind of infrastructure

Mauro Vignati:

are we securing? And then it’s up to you as a

company saying, I don’t want to protect a

Mauro Vignati:

military entity because in case of war, I’m

protecting something that can bring me to the

Mauro Vignati:

battlefield. So this is up to the company

having these these capability of distinguish

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already from the beginning of of the contract

and being clear with the government what

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they’re doing. One of the.

Speaker3:

One of the issues that you kind of have to

deal with in both hot and cyber conflicts

Speaker3:

might be mercenaries. So what are your

thoughts on kind of identifying private

Speaker3:

companies who might be affiliated with

governments?

Mauro Vignati:

That’s a good question. I mean, I chair

international maritime law does not prohibit

Mauro Vignati:

the participation in war. So this is up to an

up to everybody to know if they want to

Mauro Vignati:

participate to a war. I mean, but that you

have behaving in a in a manner that you are

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not entitled to war crimes.

Mauro Vignati:

But from this point of view, you have to be

aware of the fact that if you are a mercenary

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participating to a conflict, you can be

attacked afterward from one of the parties of

Mauro Vignati:

the conflict, even in kinetic ways. So we’re

talking about a kinetic reaction to a cyber

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operation. So this is up to everyone to do

this. We we try to get in touch with those

Mauro Vignati:

mercenaries, with the groups of people that

are cooperating with the one of the other

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party. Try to explain them. What are the

dangers bind into this, to this situation?

Mauro Vignati:

Just that they know what they what they are

facing. Thank you.

Mauro Vignati:

Yeah. We take one last.

Speaker2:

Not more. One more last one, quickly. Get.

Speaker2:

We have this man from Geneva all the way

here. We have to make all the use of its time

Speaker2:

as we can get.

Speaker3:

Go ahead with digital warfare, everyone.

Speaker3:

Or more and more people have equal access to

be a part of war.

Speaker3:

They don’t have to be in a military base.

They don’t have to grow up and go to boot

Speaker3:

camp. And I think as a people in general, we

have a desire to fight for something.

Speaker3:

So you talk about trying to stop this, the

civilian ization of warfare, but I think it’s

Speaker3:

the civilians that are that are wanting to be

a part of something. Could there be a benefit

Speaker3:

to having the states provide a way for the

civilians to actively defend their country,

Speaker3:

which might, you know, shoo them away from

trying to be offensive and potentially more

Speaker3:

damaging? And if so, is that even something

that’s realistic or possible for states to

Speaker3:

give their citizens a way to defend without

also creating a vulnerability for other

Speaker3:

countries to come in and know what’s not

defended or what needs to be fixed?

Mauro Vignati:

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a it’s a human

being reaction if you want to take part of

Mauro Vignati:

not from one of the parts of the conflict. I

mean you feel engaged in something. But then

Mauro Vignati:

the other side, what we what I’m showing here

is with the digitalization way easier to get

Mauro Vignati:

into so and this is the lack of cognitive

process. So when you think I’m going to

Mauro Vignati:

participate, just open the laptop and doing

something right will be different. If you

Mauro Vignati:

have to go physically in the battlefield and

taking a gun and participating. So this is

Mauro Vignati:

the the war that is reframing you for doing

this. That’s why this is the problem of

Mauro Vignati:

civilization. So we’re bringing more and more

civilians into the company because the easy

Mauro Vignati:

with digital means and we have to think about

is, okay, it’s easy, but the consequences are

Mauro Vignati:

exactly the same as participating physically

into conflict. That’s the main message of of

Mauro Vignati:

the talk today is that. Thank you very much,

guys.

Speaker2:

Thank you.

Mario, thank you.

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About the Presenter

Mauro Vignati currently holds the role of Advisor on Digital Technologies of Warfare for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Having worked with the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and now the ICRC, Mauro brings nearly two decades’ worth of expertise on the prevention, identification, and analysis of advanced persistent threats (APTs), mainly from state-sponsored groups.

About LABScon

This presentation was featured live at LABScon 2022, an immersive 3-day conference bringing together the world’s top cybersecurity minds, hosted by SentinelOne’s research arm, SentinelLabs.