LONDON – America’s new cyber czar said Wednesday that international law and cooperation — not another treaty — was enough to tackle cybersecurity issues for now.
Christopher Painter, coordinator for cyber issues for the State Department, declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report suggesting that the Pentagon was considering a policy to classify some cyberattacks coming from another country as acts of war. He said most of the reports were based on “things that are not released, haven’t been released or haven’t been discussed.”
He did, however, say that President Barack Obama’s recent cybersecurity strategy covered a myriad of different aspects, ranging from international freedoms to governance issues and challenges facing the military.
“We don’t need a new treaty,” he told The Associated Press as he arrived for an international cybersecurity summit in London. “We need a discussion around the norms that are in cyberspace, what the rules of the road are and we need to build a consensus around those topics.”
Hundreds of international delegates from governments and the private sector converged for the two-day conference to try to agree on the basics — how to enforce cybersecurity regulations across borders, what to do about countries that don’t want to be regulated, how to protect government and company data and who will ultimately control cyberspace?
Shawn Henry, executive assistant director of the FBI, said enforcing laws across borders was key in catching cybercriminals — many of whom have the same goals.
“You have crime syndicates or individuals looking to steal money, you have foreign government’s looking to steal state secrets and you have terror groups looking for a way to cause disruptions,” he told the AP. “Luckily, we’ve had quite a few successs recently.”
The FBI works with local law enforcement agencies in some 75 different countries, often embedding with local officers. To read the entire article, please click here.