Introduction

Cyberspace, understood as the entirety of IT network systems, their hardware and software infrastructure, as well as the information contained, processed and transmitted therein, is increasingly becoming an intelligence and military operational area. States are creating military cyber departments and integrating this domain into their defense policy strategies and Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022 presented a first glimpse of the role which cyberspace activities of state and non-state actors can play in an actual armed conflict. The militarization of cyberspace, a virtual, non-physical domain that defies the rules of physical space, poses new challenges for established approaches of sustaining international stability.