Neither US, Russia Or China Will Sign Macron's Cyber Pact
The US, Russia and China, three of today's major cyber-powers, have not signed an agreement on rules and principles released today at the Paris Peace Forum by President Emmanuel Macron of France.The pact was signed by 51 countries, the 72 companies part of The Cybersecurity Tech, the 16 companies part of The Charter of Tech, plus 136 other private companies, and 92 non-profit organisation, universities, and advocacy groups.
Major American technology corporations including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, IBM, and HP all endorsed the agreement.
The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, as the agreement has been named, is the most coordinated effort to date to get countries to agree on a set of international rules for cyberspace, a so-called Digital Geneva Convention.
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith has been advocating for such a pact since 2017 after the executive had seen the damage done to the private sector by the NotPetya outbreak, which was later proved to the work of Russian state cyber-operatives attempting to wreak havoc Ukraine.
Besides the US, China, and Russia, other countries with important and cyber units that didn't sign the pact include Iran, Israel, and North Korea.
Without the signatures of these "heavy hitters," the pact is useless, albeit many suspect it was only a PR stunt. The pact was signed a day after world leaders celebrated 100 years since the end of World War I.
The pact doesn't include any penalties for those who signed, yet have broken the agreement's clauses. The document is more of a charter and declaration of intent to sign a future, more comprehensive agreement.
The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace proposes the following measures and steps:
• Prevent and recover from malicious cyber activities that threaten or cause significant, indiscriminate or systemic harm to individuals and critical infrastructure;
• Prevent activity that intentionally and substantially damages the general availability or of the public core of the Internet;
• Strengthen our capacity to prevent malign interference by foreign actors aimed at undermining electoral processes through malicious cyber activities;
• Prevent ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or sector;
• Develop ways to prevent the proliferation of malicious ICT and practices intended to cause harm;
• Strengthen the security of digital processes, products and, throughout their lifecycle and supply chain;
• Support efforts to strengthen an advanced cyber hygiene for all actors;
• Take steps to prevent non-State actors, including the private sector, from hacking-back, for their own purposes or those of other non-State actors;
• Promote the widespread acceptance and implementation of international of responsible behavior as well as confidence-building measures in cyberspace.
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