Cyber Attacks and the Prohibition of the Use of Force

Today, cyber attacks have attracted the political and military heads of states and other international actors, because of advantages such as no need for extensive preparations and heavy costs and maintaining human resources than common armed conflict. in spite of a significant increase in cyber attacks in the past two decades, the rules governing on jus ad bellum in cyber attacks is not entirely clear. This article tries to show cyber attacks can be regarded as an armed attack and violate the principle of non-use of force if there are some circumstances. So the possibility of self-defence's injured state may be in response to the attacks. However, most of the rules governing on jus ad bellum extends to cyber attacks, some of these rules are not implemented because of the special status of these attacks.