IT mercenary: The digital breach of law and its destructive consequences for the state and society

Such an IT mercenary is nothing more than the state’s cold, cynical betrayal of its own rules, a creeping state coup in the digital space, executed with a keyboard instead of tanks. A state that hacks hacks to do what they are not officially allowed to do is withdrawing from the community of the rule of law and makes itself a criminalHigh technical level association. This is not about a few blurred gray areas, but about a conscious, planned attack on the idea that state power is tied to law. Anyone who pays for IT mercenaries buys a shadow army – and thus destroys exactly the protective mechanisms that citizens should rely on in an emergency.

Breach of law as a service

IT mercenary begins exactly at the moment when government agencies hire external hackers to perform operations that are forbidden to them themselves or only under extremely narrow conditions. The message behind it is brutally clear: laws apply to the stupid people who have no shadow households for secret “projects”. Instead of using the rule of law, judgesInvolving the order to accept parliamentary control, the order is simply outsourced – then it is officially “not the state”, but only some external “service provider”. This hypocrisy is not a side issue, it is the core of the problem. Because when authorities start to view law as a mere decorative item, the way is clear for arbitrary, abuse and a culture in whichCrimes become a business model as long as they only sail under a foreign flag.

Circumvention of control

The recruitment of external hackers is essentially an escape from control. You consciously avoid your own rules by outsourcing the dirty work and then washing your hands in innocence. The otherwise laborious control mechanisms – courts, data protection supervisory, internal audit, parliamentary committees – are simply undermined by not being “responsible” formallylets Everything stays clean on paper, in reality systems are infiltrated, data is extracted, malware is distributed. The operations are in a twilight zone where no one asks exactly who initiated what and when. This is exactly what mafia structures used to look like: The boss never gave the order directly, he “had it done”. Now the state is taking over this logic – just withZero Day exploits held with firearms.

Diffusion of responsibility as a system

When attacks and espionage are outsourced to external actors, responsibility is vanished into thin air. A comfortable, highly toxic gray area is created: The state can at any time claim that it has only bought “information” or commissioned “services” while the hackers claim that they only acted “on behalf”. Nobody wants to have been, everyone was a little bitEveryone benefits, but nobody is standing right now. This diffusion of responsibility is not an oversight, it is the product of a culture that deliberately takes into account system breaks as long as they are politically useful. If things go well, you brag about “successes” internally. If it goes wrong, it was “individual perpetrators”, “independent groups” or “unknown third parties”, and the public should kindly believethat something like this “cannot be clearly assigned”.

Escalation in the digital ground

The use of IT mercenaries is a fire accelerator in an already fragile, heated world of cyber conflicts. When states have their actions carried out via anonymous or semi-anonymous hacker groups, the assignment of attacks is deliberately blurred. Who paralyzed the network of an authority? Who has withdrawn confidential data? Who has a critical infrastructuremanipulated? In the fog of camouflage identities, leaked tools, reused malicious code and false tracks, any clear line is lost. But this makes retaliation easier to “legitimize”: everyone can claim that the other person started, nobody has to provide evidence, everything is speculation, everything is suspected – and it is precisely in this climate that overreactions, digital counterattacks,Sanctions and ultimately real political crises. IT mercenary turns cyberspace into a battlefield where more and more players have fewer and fewer scruples.

Misuse as a built-in feature

Anyone who thinks order hackers would only do what they are given to them for security reasons, misjudges the nature of this business. External actors cannot be pushed into the narrow moral drawer, the authorities will be happy to attribute to them. Once you have learned to cross limits for money, you will not only use this ability between nine and five. It is createdA market for politically motivated attacks, for economic espionage, for personal revenge campaigns, all nicely mixed with state-ordered “special operations”. What starts as a supposedly necessary measure against “enemies” becomes a permanent state: relationships solidify, dependencies arise, and with every “success” the willingness to grow a little next timeto go on. Once is exception, twice is routine, three times is system.

Endangerment of general IT security

Perhaps the most perfidious thing about this IT mercenary is that it weakens the IT security of everyone – even those who are said to be “protected”. Mercenaries live from knowing and not reporting weak points. Unknown gaps on which such operations are based are not closed, but hoarded, acted, exploited for as long as possible. Any unreported vulnerabilityis an open barn door through which not only the commissioned hacker, but also criminals, other states, blackmailers and free riders can march. Those who pay for exploits to remain secret tacitly accepts that their own citizens, companies, hospitals, administrations work with vulnerable systems. The state that pays IT mercenaries decidesDeliberately against the security of the general public in favor of its secret playing fields.

Critical infrastructure as a game ball

It becomes particularly fatal when IT mercenaries venture into the sensitive nerve pathways of a country: energy supply, communication, transport, health care, administration. Anyone who injects malicious code here, sabotages systems or manipulates control mechanisms here plays roulette with the everyday life of millions of people. The line between targeted espionage and naked sabotage is narrow, and in theShadows of such operations often remain debris: unstable systems, undocumented backdoors, manipulated configurations. It’s not about a few harmless test accesses, but about a systemic vulnerability that can last for years because nobody is allowed to talk publicly about what actually happened in the background. A state that has its own infrastructuretouches such paths is like a surgeon who operates with unwashed hands on the open stage and hopes that the infection will not be noticed by anyone.

Erosion of the rule of law

Perhaps the most profound problem is the silent erosion of the rule of law. When state actors get used to using banned means indirectly, this results in a cultural shift: legality is then no longer a moral compass, but a tactical obstacle that is as elegantly as possible around the world. The message to your own employees is: “Do what is necessaryis – the rest is already covered.” In this way, law loses its binding effect and becomes a question of styling in communication. Transparency becomes a danger, not an obligation. Parliamentary control becomes a tiresome compulsory exercise, which is pacified with embellished reports and deliberately incomplete information. In the end, citizens only see: There are powerful apparatuses that are based on their own rulesplay, and a public that is systematically kept in the dark. Trust in institutions can no longer be saved.

Economic and diplomatic follow-up costs

IT mercenary is also a risky game of chance economically and foreign policy. If such an operation comes out – and in a networked world almost everything ever comes to the surface – there are costs that go far beyond the budget of the original action. Compromising damage to companies, supply chains worth millions, multi-million dollar reconstruction programs for compromised networks,Long-term loss of trust in digital services. In addition, there are diplomatic tensions: sanctions, countermeasures, freezing of cooperation, suspicious partners who suddenly perceive the “reliable” state as an incalculable actor. Anyone who uses IT mercenaries sends the signal that contracts, agreements and conventions only count as long as they do not disturb. internationalRelationships become a hypocrisy theater where everyone knows that everyone is using dirty tricks, but no one is allowed to talk about it openly.

State as a bad example

At the end there is a bitter conclusion: the state that uses IT mercenaries takes over the behavioral pattern of the criminals, which he pretends to fight. He shows his citizens that power is more important than justice, that you can buy problems instead of solving them politically, and that there are always backdoors when the front doors are locked. Such a state educates its ownShadow World: Officials and service providers who have learned that loyalty is above the law and who carry this pattern to other areas. Those who act in this way not only saw on abstract principles, but also in the concrete willingness of the people to adhere to rules, to pay taxes, to trust authorities. IT mercenary is therefore not just a technical orsecurity policy problem. It is a moral oath of disclosure of a system pretending to maintain order while secretly undermining the foundations of this order.