The Commonwealth Cybersecurity Forum 2017 has called for more international collaboration to fight the scourge across the commonwealth nations.
At the forum, which held recently in London, United Kingdom, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland and the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Shola Taylor called for greater bilateral and multilateral collaboration between countries in the fight against cybercrime.
The two Commonwealth leaders addressed senior representatives from international and regional organisations, governments, industry and civil society at the opening of the forum, where the challenges and solutions in the implementation of national cybersecurity strategies were discussed.
The annual forum was launched in 2010 by the CTO to raise awareness of growing online criminality in its various forms, affecting people, organisations and also countries’ key national information infrastructure.
According to Taylor, “The CTO is committed to assisting our members in developing and implementing their national cybersecurity strategies for the benefit, not only of their national ICT sectors, but also the international community. The Commonwealth Cybersecurity Forum is another strand to the CTO’s work in enhancing cybersecurity and protecting cyberspace.”
Similarly, Scotland said: “Abuses of this technology can just as easily devastate lives and I am pleased that this conference provides an opportunity to build cooperation among stakeholders from across the Commonwealth to develop a joined-up approach to tackling cybercrime.”
The Director, Standardisation Bureau, International Telecoms Union (ITU), Dr. Chaesub Lee, told the conference that the security of critical infrastructure was of utmost importance, and that trusted information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure is the foundation of ICT reliability.
“The CTO’s annual conference provides an important platform to discuss the threats to cyberspace and develop plans to tackle them,” the Vice-President of Cyber, BT Security, Les Anderson, said at the forum.
The Commonwealth, built on consensus and mutual support, is a platform on which to build international cooperation on cybersecurity. The CTO plays a leading role in enhancing cybersecurity across the Commonwealth through development of its approach for developing national cybersecurity strategies and its practical assistance to Commonwealth countries in putting these strategies in place. The Commonwealth Cybersecurity Forum brings together ICT ministers, senior executives and policymakers to hear about the latest developments in the field and build both capacity and partnerships to tackle the cybersecurity challenges of today and tomorrow.
