Dr Brendan Walker-Munro

Over the past ten years, criminal offending utilising or involving computers and information systems has risen to become one of the most prevalent global security threats. With a low cost to entry and high potential benefits, cybercrime is a significant challenge for traditional forms of law enforcement investigation. In response, many Western democracies have passed laws permitting officers of policing and intelligence agencies to “hack back” – that is, to use computers to attack, infiltrate, damage or disrupt the information systems of criminal offenders. Yet the contours and boundaries of those laws are underexamined in the literature. How do these agencies pursue criminals operating extraterritorially? On what legal basis can police, intelligence services or even the military attack the computers of a criminal group? This paper seeks to chart the legal parameters of the use of cyber capabilities by Australian national security agencies on a domestic basis.