On November 9th, 2011, Julian Hale reported for DefenseNews on how a number of interesting points came out of a symposium hosted by the Security and Defense Agenda. These points included:
- NATO is looking to unite all of its agencies and commands under a single cyber command by the end of 2012. This according to Robert Bell, US ambassador to NATO.
- The EU commissioner for Home Affairs admitted that "there was no strategy" for an EU-NATO plan to respond to an Estonia-type cyber attack by another state.
- An Israeli senior cybersecurity adviser noted that critical infrastructure is the most important asset to protect from cyberattack. However, its difficult to protect this infrastructure due to legal problems. Most critical infrastructure is privately owned, and as a result, government "intrusion" into the private sector was illegal. In response, Israel changed its laws so that the government could enter the private sector and regulate critical infrastructure in order to guarantee security. The Israeli response could be illustrative for pending cyber legislation in Congress.
- The same Israeli cyber security expert argued that countries need to have a good understanding of adversaries cyber capabilities because "you can't block an attack by waiting for the attack to come."
The source article can be found here.
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Perfect timing. NATO has just released a press release detaling how it will work with the private sector to deter cyberattacks. The press release mentions improving technology, creating reaction teams, supporting allies in the case of cyberattacks, increasing information sharing amongst members, and coordinating responses to complex cyber incidents.
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