With the number of regional conflicts increasing, it is worrying to see that the International Criminal Court has been victim of a cyber-attack. Potentially exposed information includes criminal evidence to names of protected witnesses.
From Reuters:
The ICC said it had detected unusual activity on its computer network at the end of last week, prompting a response that was still ongoing. A spokesperson declined to comment on how serious the hack was, whether it has been fully resolved, or who might be behind it. “Immediate measures were adopted to respond to this cybersecurity incident and to mitigate its impact,” the ICC said in a short statement.
The ICC is the permanent war crimes tribunal in the Dutch city of The Hague, established in 2002 to try war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prosecutors at the court are currently conducting 17 investigations into situations in Ukraine, Uganda, Venezuela, Afghanistan and the Philippines, among others.
In March, the court made headlines when it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on suspicion of illegally deporting children from Ukraine. The Kremlin rejects the accusations and the court’s jurisdiction.
The Dutch intelligence agency (AIVD) said in its 2022 annual report that the ICC was “of interest to Russia because it is investigating possible Russian war crimes in Georgia and Ukraine”. In June 2022, the AIVD disclosed it had found a Russian military agent posing as a Brazilian in an attempt to infiltrate the court.
