China joins democratic governments to discuss cyber security collaboration

Government officials from around the world met on Wednesday to call for more global collaboration in the fight against cyber crime, as well as more co-ordination between governments and the private sector.

Heads of cyber security from the UK, US, China, India and France kicked off the Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in London with a high level discussion on how the world should work together to mitigate the threat of cyber terrorism.

Government officials from Germany and Russia were originally set to be included in the discussion but did not attend.

Themes included a need for more international collaboration to tackle cyber criminals, and what form this collaboration should take, as well how to get the balance right between online freedoms and regulation.

France and India debated whether the world needs more international regulation to provide a framework for states to effectively clamp down on cyber criminals, or whether national legislation is enough.

France said that national laws should suffice but that nation states should work together to combat cyber terrorists by quantifying the risk of cyber threats and setting international security standards for businesses.

"Can we still really say cyber space has no frontiers and the borders of cyber space do not follow political boundaries? Borders do exist and they are becoming stronger," said Francis Delon, France's secretary general for Defence and National Security Affairs.

“Work has to be done at an international level. This should consist of internationally agreeing an evaluation scale for cyber attacks, similar to the one being used for nuclear incidents. Secondly we need norms that the private sector should conform to, which will secure critical systems.”

India took a different view, arguing that cyber space is borderless in nature and that a global legal regime is needed to deal with the cyber terrorist threat.

“The nature of cyber space is that it is borderless and anonymous and it is not subject to government territories that have laws,” said Kapil Sibal, India's minister for IT and communications.

“So there is a fundamental contradiction between government regulation and the nature of cyber space.

“It can be called a global problem more even than the environment because the threats can manifest themselves across the whole world. The threats require concerted action across governments. The question is what kind of action and co-ordination.”

Meanwhile, India's deputy national security advisor, Latha Reddy, said that nations need to work together to create definitions relating to cyber security, best practice and a global regime to protect the financial sector.

Reddy explained that international regulation is needed to define global rules that guide governments in what types of security and offensive strategies are acceptable and which are not.

"The challenge is how to create effective law enforcement across boundaries," she said. "We need international agreements. We should go step by step, but we need to take immediate action."

Tim Dowse, director of intelligence and national security for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, argued that the debate on whether more international regulation is needed in the internet age raises important questions.

"Are existing national laws adequate? Do they apply to cyber space?" he said. "We all agree on international collaboration, but what form of collaboration should it take?"

Shawn Henry, FBI assistant director, discussed how the US is tackling cyber crime by spreading FBI resources globally.

"The key to all this is partnership. We have talked about partnerships at a private level and partnerships at a corporate level, but we also need partnerships in international law enforcement," he said.

"The FBI has representatives in 75 countries around the world. We have embedded agents in legal agencies across the world and given these agents the ability to immediately share information and act on that.

"This has allowed us to have a positive impact. In 2010, we were able to arrest 200 cyber criminals tied to organised crime groups."

Officials from China also spoke of the need for international collaboration when it comes to cyber security, even though the country has often appeared opposed to collaborating with the rest of the world when it comes to the internet. China's 'Great Firewall' shuts out many web sites from the international community.

Liu Xiaoming, ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the UK and Northern Ireland, did not join the panel discussion with the other speakers at the event but gave a speech by himself afterwards.

"The Chinese government has always supported international collaboration in cyber security," he said.

"We are now in an era where the whole world is linked by the internet which means cyber security is a vital global issue that calls for international collaboration."

The Cybersecurity Summit was held the day after the UK government revealed that it is working on a cyber offensive strategy to protect the nation from online threats.