When Does a Cyber Attack Become an Act of War?

In one of my cyber trainings, we discuss "state sponsored" attacks. Much like how we have a war against terrorism, but cannot declare war against a particular country or countries, we see the same difficulty in the digital terrain. If a US script kiddie targets a Russian government agency's computer, would that be an act of war? How about Stuxnet? Tough question indeed.

Definitely a great topic, and a very unanswered question.

PO3 Steven Sherrill this is a problem with the new weapon set that countries and individuals are playing with. Unlike conventional weapons or even WMDs, cyber weapons/tools are readily available on the Internet or can be created at home.

An individual (or group) can launch an attack and make it look like it is coming from wherever he/she wants it to originate from. So someone living in his mothers basement (in pick the state or country) launches an attack, routing the traffic so it appears to emanate from another country. Who should be held accountable and retaliated against? The country that host the routers that were used in the attack?