Press release: 30 June 2025
Late last week, the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) detected a new, sophisticated and targeted cyber security incident, which has now been contained.
This incident, the second of this type against the ICC in recent years, was swiftly discovered, confirmed and contained, through the Court’s alert and response mechanisms. A Court-wide impact analysis is being carried out, and steps are already being taken to mitigate any effects of the incident.
The Court considers it essential to inform the public and its States Parties about such incidents as well as efforts to address them, and calls for continued support in the face of such challenges.
Such support ensures the Court’s capacity to implement its critical mandate of justice and accountability, which is a shared responsibility of all States Parties.
The International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen.
The Hague-based court’s American staffers have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest.
Some nongovernmental organizations have stopped working with the ICC and the leaders of one won’t even reply to emails from court officials.
Those are just some of the hurdles facing court staff since U.S. President Donald Trump in February slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, according to interviews with current and former ICC officials, international lawyers and human rights advocates.
The sanctions will “prevent victims from getting access to justice,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch.
Trump sanctioned the court after a panel of ICC judges in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Judges found there was reason to believe that the pair may have committed war crimes by restricting humanitarian aid and intentionally targeting civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny.
One reason the the court has been hamstrung is that it relies heavily on contractors and non-governmental organizations. Those businesses and groups have curtailed work on behalf of the court because they were concerned about being targeted by U.S. authorities, according to current and former ICC staffers.
Microsoft, for example, cancelled Khan’s email address, forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider, ICC staffers said. His bank accounts in his home country of the U.K. have been blocked.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.
Staffers at an NGO that plays an integral role in the court’s efforts to gather evidence and find witnesses said the group has transferred money out of U.S. bank accounts because they fear it might be seized by the Trump administration.
Five weeks ago, the International Criminal Court detected a serious cyber security incident, thanks to the alert mechanism provided by its monitoring system. The ICC has made various and serious efforts to address this attack. The Court deems it is its responsibility to continue to inform about these efforts and to provide the relevant additional information on the attack itself.
A cyberattack hit the International Criminal Court (ICC) disclosed a cyberattack this week, its systems were compromised last week.
FOR YEARS, SOME cybersecurity defenders and advocates have called for a kind of Geneva Convention for cyberwar, new international laws that would create clear consequences for anyone hacking civilian critical infrastructure, like power grids, banks, and hospitals. Now the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague has made it clear that he intends to enforce those consequences—no new Geneva Convention required. Instead, he has explicitly stated for the first time that the Hague will investigate and prosecute any hacking crimes that violate existing international law, just as it does for war crimes committed in the physical world.
