Cyber warfare, meaning interstate cyber aggression, is an increasingly important emerging phenomenon in international relations, with state-orchestrated (or apparently state-orchestrated) computer network attacks occurring in Estonia (2007), Georgia (2008) and Iran (2010). This method of waging warfare – given its potential to, for example, make planes fall from the sky or cause nuclear power plants to melt down – has the capacity to be as devastating as any conventional means of conducting armed conflict. Every state in the world now has a cyber-defence programme and over 120 states also have a cyber-attack programme.
