Cybersecurity Tech Accord

• A group of 34 major tech companies, including Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft, HP, RSA, and Oracle, have signed the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.
• This accord promises to establish partnerships to share vulnerabilities, provide consumers with better ways to protect themselves, and refuse to assist governments in carrying out state sponsored cyberattacks.

The companies made commitments in four areas.

Stronger defense

• The companies will mount a stronger defense against cyberattacks. As part of this, recognizing that everyone deserves protection, the companies pledged to protect all customers globally regardless of the motivation for attacks online.
• No offense
• The companies will not help governments launch cyberattacks against innocent citizens and enterprises, and will protect against tampering or exploitation of their products and services through every stage of technology development, design and distribution.

Capacity building

• The companies will do more to empower developers and the people and businesses that use their technology, helping them improve their capacity for protecting themselves. This may include joint work on new security practices and new features the companies can deploy in their individual products and services.

Collective action

• The companies will build on existing relationships and together establish new formal and informal partnerships with industry, civil society and security researchers to improve technical collaboration, coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats and minimize the potential for malicious code to be introduced into cyberspace.

Analysis:

• The devastating attacks from the past year demonstrate that cybersecurity is not just about what any single company can do but also about what we can all do together. This tech sector accord will help us take a principled path towards more effective steps to work together and defend customers around the world.
• Regarding partnerships, the companies seek to build relationships with major players in the cybersecurity field to share vulnerabilities and threats as well as improve technical collaboration.
• The accord mentions that cyberattacks could potentially cost around $8 trillion by 2022 and can hurt small businesses, governments, and hospitals. To assist in this partnership, big security companies like RSA, Avast, FireEye, and Symantec have pledged their support for the accord.
• The Tech Accord will help to protect the integrity of the one trillion connected devices we expect to see deployed within the next 20 years. It aligns the resources, expertise and thinking of some of the world’s most important technology companies to help to build a trusted foundation for technology users who will benefit immensely from a more security connected world.

By: Vishal