Costs of Cyber Espionage – Proposed Principles: Red Team Report

By: Center for Security Innovation and New Technology; Washington College of Law | Summer 2026

This report presents the findings of a red team review of draft principles to mitigate the costs of cyber espionage, conducted through two expert workshops convened under the Chatham House Rule in December 2025 and January 2026. Drawing on contributions from practitioners across industry, law, and cybersecurity policy, the review identified four structural deficiencies in the draft principles: ambiguity in naming and taxonomic organization; scope drift beyond espionage into pre-positioning and international law; unresolved audience targeting that conflates recommendations for States with those for private sector actors; and inadequate treatment of privacy harms as a distinct cost category. This report recommends restructuring the principles around clearly defined audiences, narrowing scope to espionage-specific costs, and grounding each principle in an evidentiary base where appropriate.

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