NATO countries are working to determine when a cyber attack would trigger the collective defence provision in the alliance’s charter, a US general has said.

The alliance is “dealing with the issue around this and in cyber and working to define an understanding of what would be a trigger for Article 5,” General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, told a US Senate committee.

It “recognises the difficulty in indirect or asymmetric activity that Russia is practising, activities below the level of conflict,” Scaparrotti said.

NATO leaders have agreed that a cyber attack against a member state could trigger Article 5, and reaching a specific understanding on the issue would allow “greater agility, greater flexibility in determining how to respond,” he said.