Fighting Cyber Attacks with Sanctions: Digital Threats, Economic Responses

Abstract

This article contributes to the understanding of why states resort to targeted, or smart, sanctions to meet the threat of cyber intrusions and whether this type of response is a forced measure or an effective tool to halt, prevent and punish attacking states. The tools of analysis used in the article are legal positivism and political theories, including Mancur Olson's theory of groups and Francesco Giumelli's analytical framework for assessment of sanctions. The authors address the effectiveness of sanctions as a reaction to cyber-enabled activities through the lens of regulation introduced in the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, which are the most developed counter-cyber sanction regimes, analysing publicly known cases of cyber-related sanctions.