E-Business
In Absence of Rules, Cyber Terrorists Attack Nations
The systematic crash of the computer systems of banks and TV broadcasters in South Korea — reportedly the result of an attack that was widely speculated to have been launched by North Korea — raises questions about what international laws, if any, govern the new and unexplored area of cyberwarfare.
“The answer is there’s nothing and there’s everything,” said Michael Schmitt, professor and chairman of the international law department at the U.S. Naval War College.
Schmitt, who was asked by the NATO Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence to look into these issues, chaired a three-year project that brought together 20 academics and practitioners from around the world.
CBC, the leading Canadian media reported that the culmination of their efforts was the recently published Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare.
“If you’re looking for cyber specific law, a law that says ‘a cyberattack that causes these consequences in an armed attack to which you can respond,’ you will find nothing,” he said. “But it was our unanimous consensus among the group of experts that the existing international law applies to cyberspace and to cyberweapons.”
This means that, as international law permits a country to defend itself and retaliate if attacked by conventional weapons, a country that is the victim of a cyberattack that causes damage or death, may also retaliate, either through cyberwarfare or conventional weapons.
“Hack into a control system of a dam and release waters downstream. Those waters are going to cause significant damage, physical damage, people will drown. In my mind that’s clearly an armed attack,” Schmitt said.
“And if someone did that to Canada, you could resort to force, not only cyber but armed force to defend yourself.”
Other examples of cyberwarfare that are grounds for retaliation by force could include hacking into a water treatment plant and causing chemicals to flow into the water, thereby poisoning the population, hacking into air traffic control systems and causing planes to crash, or hacking into a hospital and changing people’s blood type, causing harm to patients
But the attack on South Korea, if in fact North Korea was responsible, is different, Schmitt said.
The attack is certainly a violation of South Korea’s sovereignty and a violation of international law, he said, but not grounds for the use of force in response.
“We would call that a below the threshold operation that certainly would permit a response from South Korea but the response could not include armed force,” Schmitt said.
The retaliatory options for South Korea would include countermeasures. These are actions that can be taken by the aggrieved state that would normally be unlawful under international law but are considered acceptable because the aggressor state violated international law first.
“If state A attacks state B’s banking system, state B may then respond proportionally against state A’s banking system to compel state A to knock it off,” Schmitt said.
His group also looked at issues surrounding cyberattacks on civilians. Under international law and the principle of distinction, when on the battlefield, operations may only be directed against military objects and combatants and not civilians.
“We asked the question ‘when is a cyber operation a forbidden attack?’ There are all sorts of things you can do in cyberspace against civilians during an armed conflict that doesn’t physically harm them and doesn’t injure them,” he said. For example, erasing personal data or messing with their banking records.
“What we said is that this is a very hard question. Not unanimous, but the majority said that an attack, in the law of war, means you physically harm someone, you break something, you cause physical damage or you interfere in the functionality of an object such that it needs to be actually repaired.”
Ashley Deeks, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and an expert in international law, said many of the scenarios are case by case.
“Even in the kinetic world, there is no real definition of what an armed attack is,” she said, adding that states look to past practices.
For example, the Stuxnet computer virus, reportedly launched by the U.S. that attacked and destroyed hundreds of centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Iran, raised these issues.
“I guess I would just characterize it as the closest thing we’ve seen to a cyber action that produces real world effects, not dissimilar from what a kinetic attack would do. But I’m not prepared to say it was an armed attack.”
That’s why a lot of people are starting to devote a lot of attention to cyberwarfare and trying to sort out where the lines are, Deeks said.
“There are a lot of question marks. If you took out a banking system, and it caused massive instability in the country … that could be construed as an armed attack by some states. But it’s really an open question,” she said.
“There would be other states that say, ‘No, unless people die, things blow up, not an armed attack. We want to set a high threshold.’ Others say, ‘That ‘s crazy. You want to start deterring these things. You want to call lower level things armed attacks.”
However, Schmitt said he believes all these thresholds will evolve over the next decade.
“I anticipate that we’ll see a lot of thresholds coming down that will allow states to respond more vibrantly to cyber attacks that might not be possible under the law as we found it.”
Kaspersky’s latest survey highlights a protection gap between macOS and Windows based devices. While macOS has long been regarded as the more secure operating system, 12% of its users reported malware infections compared with 9% of Windows users. Moreover, only 35% of macOS owners install dedicated security software, versus 42% of Windows users.
According to Kaspersky’s latest global survey*, Windows users report a higher adoption rate for most security measures, while macOS users show a modest advantage in a few privacy‑focused actions. At the same time, during the past year macOS users reported higher percentages than Windows users for a number of cybersecurity incidents.
The largest gap in cybersecurity approaches appears in the habit of not opening suspicious emails or links, with 62% of Windows users following this practice compared to 51% of macOS users.
What’s more, when it comes to cybersecurity software installation, macOS users are also lagging behind. While among Windows users 42% reported using digital‑life‑protection software, for macOS this rate is only 35%, what Kaspersky security experts call a worryingly low figure.
It is noteworthy that 12% of macOS respondents said they fell victim to phishing (fake emails, websites or messages) over the past year compared with 9% of Windows users. Moreover, during this period macOS users faced more scams and investment frauds (16% vs 13%), privacy violations (11% vs 8%) and thefts of personal data (12% vs 7%).
To counter these specific threats, robust anti-malware and anti-phishing protection is essential. Malware authors put a lot of effort into developing new, more powerful and stealthier versions of stealers, spies and other classes of malicious payloads, while relying on phishing techniques that allows them to get access to user’s data.
Dedicated security solutions add a crucial layer of real-time detection and defence that complements macOS’s built-in protection – and independent tests have repeatedly shown that effective options, such as Kaspersky Premium for macOS, deliver strong protection. In 2025, AV-TEST recognised it as the top-performing macOS security solution based on consistent, reliable results across a full year of evaluations.
When it comes to credentials and passwords safety, Windows users also show better security practices’ adoption rates. They lead in using a unique password for each account (38% vs 35%) and complex passwords (52% vs 45%), two‑factor or multi‑factor authentication (51% vs 46%).
Adopting a dedicated password manager becomes a logical next step. Such tools store all credentials in a secure vault protected by a single master password, eliminating the need to remember hundreds of passwords while keeping them safe from breaches.
They also support modern authentication methods like passkeys, enabling seamless, single-tap sign-in across all devices through secure synchronisation – capabilities offered by solutions such as Kaspersky Password Manager.
“There are entrenched stereotypes that macOS is inherently more secure because its user base is smaller, leading cyber‑criminals to deem it a lower‑value target, or because the platform itself includes many robust security features. While these observations are not entirely unfounded, the threat landscape has evolved dramatically.
Attackers actively employ phishing and commit supply chain attacks, which often allow them to affect users of any operating system in a single malware campaign. Moreover, mac specific malware is not rare and there are many malware families that target macs exclusively. Consequently, any device with an Internet connection, regardless of its operating system or form factor, requires cybersecurity software to defend against a wide range of cyber threats,” comments Sergey Puzan, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky.
E-Business
Cyber Resilience a Critical Priority for Manufacturing Amid Rapid Digitalization – Report Shows
As 60% of manufacturers race toward full digitalisation, cyber risk is increasingly manifesting as a business risk, according to a new global report by Kaspersky and VDC Strategy.
This means cybersecurity is not merely a compliance function, it is a cornerstone of production assurance, safeguarding uptime, quality, and operational continuity.
Manufacturers are modernising to deliver safer, more consistent and more cost-effective production and digitalization is moving fast: just 9% of organisations describe themselves as fully digital today, but 60% expect to get there within two years, according to the joint report by Kaspersky and VDC, titled ‘Cyber Resilience, Built for Manufacturing’.
That shift links shop-floor equipment, production lines and site operations to platforms such as Manufacturing execution systems (MES), Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and historians, turning many plants into cyber-physical systems (CPS), where a digital disruption doesn’t stay digital. It can slow production lines, quarantine work in progress, invalidate traceability records, or halt production outright.
What’s driving manufacturing digitalization?
Manufacturers are digitising for measurable operational gains, not novelty. Survey respondents identified the primary drivers of their digital transformation strategy as:
- Improving production output or efficiency (24%)
- Reducing operational or production expenses (15%)
- Enabling new strategic opportunities (14%)
- Improving cyber resilience (13%)
The same connected systems that unlock these gains, including MES, IIoT sensors, automated material handling, remote engineering access, also become the systems that determine whether production can be trusted to keep running.
Cyber risk is now a business risk
Cyber risk has evolved from a mere IT concern to a direct threat to revenue generation, as environments transform into cyber-physical systems. In these integrated settings, digital disruptions like malware no longer just affect data, they can cause unsafe operations, scrapped batches, and halted production on the plant floor. This shift highlights the urgent need to treat cybersecurity as a key part of operational resilience.
According to the report, nearly 60% of manufacturing organisations estimate that cyber incidents cause damages exceeding $1 million per event, with an average disruption of 15.3 hours. The most significant losses often result from production halts, missed delivery commitments, and penalties, rather than just forensic costs.
In this context, downtime links cybersecurity risks to overall business performance. Cyber incidents can reduce Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), strain staffing, and disrupt supply chains. Recovery involves more than system restore, it requires re-establishing confidence in process parameters, quality records, and traceability before resuming operations.
Mature cybersecurity programs now incorporate OT security into governance, focusing on metrics valued by production leaders such as time to restore, backup confidence, legacy asset coverage, and safe degraded operation. This alignment ensures cybersecurity supports continuous production and resilience, not just IT compliance.
However, challenges remain due to split ownership. While 59% of organisations’ IT departments manage security policies, these often overlook plant realities. Managing many security tools (44%) and OT patching issues (38%) show that cybersecurity must be embedded into daily routines of production, engineering, and quality teams. Only through such integration can cybersecurity effectively enhance operational reliability and defend against evolving threats.
“As manufacturing environments become increasingly interconnected, cybersecurity shifts focus from merely adding protective layers to ensuring the availability, resilience, and integrity of production processes. The goal is to minimise operational impact and speed up recovery, rather than solely preventing intrusions.
“Kaspersky offers a unified ecosystem that integrates IT, OT, and IIoT security, empowering manufacturers to pursue digital transformation securely. This strategy helps maintain operational continuity and reduces long-term cybersecurity costs,” comments Andrey Strelkov, Head of Industrial Cybersecurity Product Line at Kaspersky.
To implement this strategy, manufacturing companies can leverage solutions from the Kaspersky OT Cybersecurity Ecosystem, centered around Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS), a native Extended Detection and Response platform designed for critical infrastructure protection. KICS enables centralised detection and response to complex attacks across the entire industrial network, ensuring comprehensive visibility and security.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has commenced a forensic investigation into the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lotus Bank and Hackerbella Ltd over alleged violations of data protection laws involving students’ personal information.
The investigation follows public complaints alleging that students’ personal data were used to open bank accounts without a lawful basis.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner and chief executive officer of the NDPC, directed the investigation team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the circumstances surrounding the collection, processing, use and disclosure of the affected students’ personal data.
The investigation will also determine the respective roles and responsibilities of UNILAG, Lotus Bank and Hackerbella in the alleged processing of the data.
According to the Commission, the investigation will assess the data protection compliance obligations of the parties under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 (NDP Act), as well as potential risks posed to the rights and freedoms of the affected data subjects.
The NDPC said the probe would cover several areas, including Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), the lawfulness and transparency of credit scoring or profiling activities, and the use of automated decision-making systems.
It will also examine the adequacy of privacy notices, data-sharing arrangements, lawful bases for processing, data minimisation and purpose limitation.
Other areas include data retention policies and the adequacy of technical and organisational measures put in place to safeguard the rights and personal data of affected students.
The Commission reiterated that institutions entrusted with the personal data of students, staff and other members of their communities have a heightened responsibility to ensure that such information is processed lawfully, fairly, transparently and securely.
The NDPC therefore warned educational institutions that are yet to comply with its existing data protection compliance directives to take immediate steps to achieve compliance.
The Commission said it would continue to exercise its regulatory mandate to protect the privacy rights of Nigerians and ensure that organisations processing personal data comply with the provisions of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023.
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