UK could retaliate against cyber attacks with missiles, Attorney General says

Britain has a legal right to retaliate against aggressive cyber attacks with missiles, the Attorney General has suggested.

The most serious cyber attacks should be treated in the same way as armed attacks on Britain if they result in a high level of devastation, Jeremy Wright QC said.

It is the first time a Government minister has set out the UK’s view on the record.

Speaking to Chatham House, the think tank, on Wednesday morning, Mr Wright said: "Cyber operations that result in or present an imminent threat of death and destruction on an equivalent scale to an armed attack will give rise to an inherent right to take action in self defence.

"If a hostile state interferes with the operation of one of our nuclear reactors, resulting in the widespread loss of life, the fact that the act is carried out by way of a cyber operation does not prevent it from being viewed as an unlawful use of force or an armed attack against us.

“States that are targeted by hostile cyber operations have the right to respond to those operations in accordance with the options lawfully available to them.”

The action in response must be “necessary and proportionate” to the threat faced.

The Attorney General also said cyber operations which manipulate the electoral system to alter the results of an election would see a response, most likely not using force, aimed at stopping the attack.

Mr Wright’s comments go further than last year’s speech by Sir Michael Fallon, defence secretary at the time, who said Britain needed to be prepared to fight back against “anonymous cyber foes” who are “hiding behind a veil of encryption targeting our national infrastructure”.

The Attorney General said the Government was investing £1.9 billion in cyber security.  Its cyber defence programme typically prevents 4.5 million malicious emails per month.

He stressed that “cyber space must never be a lawless world” but admitted that applying international legal principles to it is “difficult”.