Exclusive interview with Secretary General of the UN’s ITU

New proposals published by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union could help harmonise global cybersecurity legislation, with the body’s chief Dr Hamadoun Touré insisting it is vital that countries cooperate in a coordinated fight against cyber threats, cybercrime and other misuses of IT.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Secretary General Touré said the level of international cooperation being demonstrated through the ITU showed how it is possible to formulate a response to cyber terrorism which is truly global.

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Highlights:

• The threats are real. The sustained attack on Estonia in 2007
  highlighted the real dangers of cyber terrorism and demonstrated that
  the more wired a country is, the more vulnerable it becomes.
• More
  recently, Canadian researchers at the Munk Center for International
  Studies at Toronto University reported the existence of a huge
  ‘GhostNet’ phishing network that successfully infiltrated at least
  1,295 computers in government offices of 103 countries. 
• The line
  from the ITU is that unless governments and business leaders recognize
  the dangers and begin to work together to combat cyber crime and cyber
  terrorists, then the consequences could be catastrophic. 
• Large enterprises are to some degree better placed to protect themselves, but the ITU reckons 85% of businesses are vulnerable.