From alleged Russian meddling in elections to firms constantly falling victims to cyber attacks, it’s certainly time to take cybersecurity seriously. So it’s encouraging to see 34 global tech leaders having signed an agreement to help protect people and businesses from malicious attacks.
The list of signatories include heavy hitters like Facebook, LinkedIn, Dell, Nokia, Telefonica and Arm, the British software company. Together they back the Cybersecurity Tech Accord and its four commitments to make the cyberspace more difficult for hackers with bad intent.
The first commitment is to help create stronger defence against cyber attacks for all their customers around the globe.
The second commitment is to offer no offensive measure. In particular, this means they won’t help governments develop or launch digital assaults against businesses or people. Moreover, they won’t allow country leaders to tamper with their services at any stage of their development or distribution.
The third commitment is to help spread knowledge among developers, citizens and organisations on how they can protect themselves. The signatories backing the pledge states that this will include joint work on security and products.
The fourth commitment is to increase their co-operation among themselves as well as outside researchers and the public in general to nurture more collaboration and minimise the risk of malicious codes being unleashed into cyberspace.
Commenting on the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, Kevin Simzer, COO at Trend Micro, the Japanese cybersecurity company and one of the signatories, said: “The real world consequences of cyber threats have been repeatedly proven. As an industry, we must band together to fight cybercriminals and stop future attacks from causing even more damage.”
With the threat of hack attacks and fake news increasing every day, it’s good to see tech giants like these step up to protect the little guy.
