ITU Partners Brace for Battle against Cyber Threats

ITU Telecom World 2013, held in Bangkok, Thailand has demonstrated the power and need to work together with partners to enhance cybersecurity capabilities in the online world.

ITU’s partners ABI Research, Nuix, High Tech Bridge, The Cyber Guardian, Symantec, the Regional Cybersecurity Centre (RCC), and the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) put together the Cybersecurity Pavilion to showcase and disseminate information on cybersecurity-related activities for ensuring a secure and safer digital environment.

The show floor session on Building Cybersecurity Capabilities in the Developing World: Needs, Challenges, and the Role of Public-Private Partnerships discussed lessons learned from ITU-IMPACT and its partners to enhance cybersecurity and move forward in helping developing countries to build robust cybersecurity capabilities while respecting fundamental values and the economic importance of the Internet.

ITU and ABI Research launched the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI). A joint effort between the ITU and ABI Research, a market intelligence company specializing in global technology markets, the GCI will be used to measure each country’s level of cybersecurity development and capability. “We are only as strong as our weakest link,” said Hamadoun I. Touré, ITU secretary-general. “

We can learn from the best practice of those countries at the top of the index and create a global culture of cooperation and support. We can’t afford not to do this.” Data from the first sample, the Arab region, was presented, with Oman ranking highest, with Morocco and Egypt next in line.

The ITU Security Standards workshop provided an overview of ITU’s “Standards on Security and Identity Management” with a detailed walkthrough of the various security standards developed by the Joint Coordination Activity on Child Online Protection (JCA-COP) working within ITU’s standardization sector, ITU-T.

The session on Child Online Protection: VISION BYND 2015 focused on issues related to child online safety as a follow up to the Global Youth Summit, BYND 2015 held in September 2013 in Costa Rica.

The COP initiative aims to empower youth to stay safe, to act appropriately, and to behave in the online world with the same sense of responsibility that they behave in the offline world.

Dame Patience Jonathan, first lady of Nigeria, ITU’s Child Online Protection Champion, issued a call for action to stakeholders to improve educational resources and materials and to facilitate the discussion with digital content creators; to advocate the rights of freedom of speech, association and privacy online; and to establish policies within an effective framework that would protect the use of private data and intellectual property, and deter online criminal activity.

The Nuix Demonstration presented a Host Based Network Analysis and compared the differences between traditional and host-based investigations.

It also provided a concise explanation of the techniques to locate network artefacts, in order to retrieve connection data and historical information.

Today, ITU officially signed its partnership with Trend Micro to better equip ITU’s 193 Member States, as well as more than 700 private-sector entities and academic institutions, with the latest information to fight cyber threats globally.

Through this partnership, ITU will benefit from Trend Micro’s institutional expertise and research. ITU and Trend Micro will distribute co-branded information to key influencers and audiences on a regular basis.