As armed conflicts digitalize, hospitals are increasingly targeted by cyber operations that threaten their data, communications, software, and hardware, all of which are critical for hospitals to operate. The session will delve into the project of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the development of a ‘Digital Emblem’ to mark medical facilities and certain humanitarian organizations that are specifically protected under international humanitarian law in cyberspace, just as the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal emblems do in the physical world. The session will discuss the need to extend IHL protections in cyberspace to avoid inadvertent attacks on the systems used by protected entities in cyberspace during armed conflicts and how a ‘digital emblem’ could be viable solution. The technical streams being developed for the digital emblem also will be able to be used to expand these capabilities. Based on these developments, it will be possible to divide, segregate, and mark what are military assets within civilian infrastructures, so as to distinguish them and prevent civilian infrastructures from being attacked (with cyber or physical capabilities) during armed conflict or peacetime. It will feature representatives from ICRC, Johns Hopkins APL, ETH Zurich, CyberPeace Institute, Microsoft and the JPCERT to discuss the practical implementation of this proposal.

ICRC, being an organization operating in more than 100 countries, has a long culture of online work, exchange and participation. It will therefore be the organizers' concern to respect this culture during the IGF as well. The listed organizations have confirmed their attendance and some people have already confirmed their availability (such as Koichiro Komiyama of JPCERT). It is possible that the names of the experts may change slightly, also trying to have a greater gender balance.