International humanitarian law (IHL), also called the law of armed conflict, sets rules for how parties may conduct hostilities. Its core ideas are distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack: military targets must be separated from civilians, expected civilian harm must not be excessive, and attackers must take feasible steps to reduce risk.
IHL matters in cyber security because modern weapons and military platforms depend on software, networks, sensors, and data. If a system misidentifies a target, is spoofed, or behaves unpredictably, the resulting strike can raise IHL questions. Defenders and investigators therefore look at logs, configuration, command chains, and system updates to reconstruct what the machine did and whether human operators retained effective control. In practice, IHL links technical evidence to legal accountability.