State Dept. cyber official cautions lawmakers on using ‘threshold’ for cyber self-defense

The State Department’s coordinator for cyber issues stressed to lawmakers on Wednesday that international cyber deterrence policy should not establish a hardline threshold for unacceptable behavior in cyberspace that would elicit a self-defense response under the United Nations Charter.

Christopher Painter, the State Department’s cyber coordinator, told Senate Foreign Affairs cybersecurity subcommittee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-CO) and ranking member Ben Cardin (D-MD) that there should be some “strategic ambiguity” in determining whether malicious cyber behavior by nation-state actors should result...