Domestic Law Responses to Transnational Cyberattacks and Other Online Harms: Internet Dreams Turned to Internet Nightmares and Back Again

Since its utilization has become widespread, the potential of the Internet has often been overshadowed by the harms it’s capable of bringing upon society. Regulation has not yet properly addressed the harms presented to individuals’ cybersecurity and the U.K. has focused and set objectives at a national security level, while ignoring the effects of attacks on individual citizens. This Article considers whether it is possible to create a domestic legal response to transnational cyberattacks and the appropriateness of law to address the threats, as they exist. The law must be efficient, effective, and fair, which are all aims it may achieve by setting out tactical and operational mechanisms, including police powers, criminal offenses, and sanctions.

This Article examines instances of cyber-attacks, existing laws and their appropriateness for achieving the above-mentioned objectives. A comprehensive legal framework that includes tactical interventions the state could take and existing operational interventions, which may be used or expanded on to fully address the risk and resulting harm from these attacks, is advanced. Ultimately, law cannot provide all the solutions for the harms presented by these attacks due to transnationality, instantaneity and accessibility issues, in addition to political harms. The comprehensive plan in this Article illuminates the need for the whole of society—government, civil society, and the private sector—to address cybersecurity attacks.