US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the US and Japan agree that Article 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty, which obliges the countries to come to each other’s defense in case of an armed attack, could also be activated by a cyberattack because “international law applies in cyberspace and […] a cyberattack could, in certain circumstances, constitute an armed attack.”
Japan’s Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said that applying the treaty to cyberattacks is “significant from the perspective of deterrence,” because China and other countries are working to increase their military capabilities in “new domains such as space and cyber and [the] electromagnetic spectrum.”
Read more: US could regard cyberattack on Japan as ‘armed attack,’ Pompeo says
