Last week's attack by hackers on the International Criminal Court is affecting daily business. The attack forced the cancellation of scheduled sessions in recent days. Other work resumed Thursday, but the ICT network is still largely down.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for the International Criminal Court confirmed that a "cybersecurity incident" had occurred last week. The attack came to light when IT staff noticed "abnormal activity" on their network. To limit its impact, response and security measures were taken immediately.
An anonymous source told NIS that confidential documents had been captured in the attack. The International Criminal Court spokesman could not confirm that. However, he could say that the incident is being fully investigated. These include whether a foreign government or state-sponsored hacker group was responsible for the events.
After some digging by NOS, we know that several hearings could not go ahead in recent days. The sessions dealt with the case against Alfred Yekatom, a former militia leader in the Central African Republic. According to the International Criminal Court, he is guilty of multiple war crimes, including the recruitment of child soldiers, mass murder and torture.
In addition to hearings being canceled, several ICT services were not working properly over the past few days. According to Reuters, these included e-mail, livestreams with defendants and access to legal documents. Working remotely was effectively impossible.
"As a defense attorney, we have limited access to the systems of the Criminal Court," attorney Geert-Jan Knoops told the U.S. News Agency. Another lawyer confirms that she had to exchange information for her client via USB sticks and paper files, for which she had to visit the Criminal Court in person.
The International Criminal Court is currently conducting 17 investigations into 31 cases. One of the ongoing cases is against Russia for invading Ukraine and deporting Ukrainian children to its own territory. The information held by the Criminal Court is extremely sensitive. It is of interest to defendants because it gives them insight into the evidence the prosecution has gathered against them, and who will be heard as witnesses.
It is unknown who is behind the attack on the International Criminal Court. No one has yet claimed responsibility.
