International
Cooperation: Cyberthreats Are a Global Problem and They Need a Global Solution
Cyberthreat issues are global. Countries cannot close their borders to
incoming cyberthreats. Time and geography, as well as the location of victims,
are no longer barriers to where and when these attacks are launched by
cybercriminals. Attempts to try to solve these challenges at the national or
regional levels have proveninsufficient. Legal and technical measures at the
national and regional levels are necessary, but not sufficient, to address these
global threats.
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Understanding What Cybersecurity Means to All
To put in place a global solution to address those challenges, it is vital
that all countries arrive at a common understanding of what cybersecurity means.
Cybersecurity is about providing protection against unauthorized access,
manipulation and destruction of critical resources and assets, such as data. The
value of these resources and assets vary from country to country and depend in
part on the level of development and type of economic activities. Their value
also depends on what each country consider to be its critical resources, the
efforts it is willing and able to make and its assessment of the risks that it
is willing to accept, in a trade-off with the cybersecurity measures that it is
prepared to implement.
Many Least Developed Countries consider cybersecurity mainly as a means to
extend the benefits of ICTs through the delivery of secure and high-trust
services in sectors such as health, commerce, public administration and finance.
Their needs, priorities and strategies in cybersecu¬rity are not necessarily the
same as those of the most developed countries. However, quite a number of
developed countries, in addition to other threats such as online fraud, consumer
protection and privacy, also consider cybersecurity solutions as a way to
protect and maintain the integrity of their critical infrastructures in the
financial, health, energy, transportation, telecommunica¬tion, defense and other
sectors. Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) is thus high on
the agenda of most, if not all, countries.
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