Red Cross issues rules of engagement to war-focused hacker groups, who say 'why should I listen to the Red Cross?'

pcgamer.com:

We live in an age of state-sponsored cyber warfare, one where conflicts have a parallel and intangible digital battlefield. The most obvious manifestation of this is propaganda, good old information warfare, with things like photos, videos and records being obtained and then framed and circulated online. The other side of it—concentrated cyber attacks on infrastructure, hacks of enemy equipment and forces, doomsday viruses like Stuxnet—the public never sees outside of vague news reports.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has turbo-charged another aspect to this: civilian hacker groups, sometimes called hacktivists, who are able to get involved in a conflict from anywhere. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reckons that this particular conflict has seen unprecedented numbers of civilian hackers get involved and, for the first time, has published rules of engagement for cyber warfare.

There are eight rules, including a ban on attacking hospitals, a ban on threatening civilians, and the production of computer viruses that spread uncontrollably. The rules are rooted in international humanitarian law and are:

The ICRC warns hackers risk not only threatening the lives of others but making themselves legitimate military targets. ICRC legal adviser Dr Tilman Rodenhäuser says:

«Some experts consider civilian hacking activity as 'cyber-vigilantism' and argue that their operations are technically not sophisticated and unlikely to cause significant effects. However, some of the groups we're seeing on both sides are large and these 'armies' have disrupted [...] banks, companies, pharmacies, hospitals, railway networks and civilian government services.»

Unfortunately, the very nature of civilian hacking collectives means