State Responsibility for Cyber Attacks: Competing Standards for a Growing Problem

This Article reviews both the applicability and desirability of the two vying regimes for state responsibility under international law as applied to cyber attacks: the effective and overall control standards. Due to the technical difficulties with proving attribution for cyber attacks, along with the unreasonably high burden of proof required by the ICJ’s interpretation of the effective control standard, this Article argues for the adoption of the overall control standard as being both within the best interests of NATO as well as the international community.