London: The International Criminal Court (ICC), which has its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, has ruled that a cyberattack against its computers last month constituted an effort at “espionage”.
In September, the ICC discovered a significant cyber security breach and immediately began to take urgent action to stop the assault.
The ICC said in a statement that it later came to the conclusion that this event was a “targeted and sophisticated attack” with the “objective of espionage.”
The action “can thus be understood as a serious attempt to undermine the court’s mandate,” the court stated late on Friday.
The ICC is in possession of sensitive material about suspected war crimes and information on witnesses who would be put in danger if their names were made public.
At a time when court security concerns were both more widespread and more pressing, the most recent incident occurred.
“Several elected officials, including judges of the court and the prosecutor, have had criminal proceedings initiated against them. The Court has recently been the target of daily and persistent attempts to attack and disrupt its systems. The Court also narrowly avoided an attempt to infiltrate a hostile intelligence officer under the guise of an intern.
As soon as the issue was identified, action was taken to lessen its impacts by launching a rapid incident response with assistance from the Netherlands, the host state, and outside cyber security specialists.
Based on the results of the forensic investigation, the court declared that it had taken all necessary precautions to address any breach of data belonging to persons, companies, and states.
The Court has also noted that misinformation campaigns targeting the ICC and its officers may be expected to be launched in an attempt to damage the ICC’s reputation and undermine the legitimacy of its operations. This is part of a larger assessment of prospective actions by threat actors.
