Today’s cyber security trends are evolving at an overwhelming pace, posing an ever-present threat to our connected world (Internetsociety.org, 2015, January 22). Cyberattacks is always trending in every digital media channel. The perpetrators of these attacks are intellectual, and intelligent driven individuals. In order to level the field, we must meet them head on intellectually, and with a high level of intelligent. The intelligence could come from a collection of information and these Information must be treated as the cyberspace driven philosophy defense toll to the defense of the cyberspace. Cyberspace has changed the way we care about our information, it also brought changes and opportunities. Such as, cyberspace exponentially increases prosperity consequently wellbeing. On the other hand, cyberspace also come with the consequences of the criminal actors exploring the weakness of the cyberspace to commit cybercrimes. For instance, steal, sell or destroy companies assets, or act of terrorism against nations infrastructures within the cyberspace. Moreover, cybersecurity has grown from a local problem of a particular country or a continent to a global problem. It has being exported to every corner of the world. For that reason, cybersecurity is a global problem that needs the cooperation of the global cyberspace community to work together to create a safer cyberspace. Independently the size of the company, small, midsize, or large they cannot secure the global cyberspace by itself. In like manner, no country can secure a global cyberspace by itself. Independ of the size, wealth and advance in technology. The quest to create a global safer cyberspace is achievable with the cooperation of the globalized cyberspace community. These cooperation involve political, economic, and social. In a broader sense, governments must work together to easy barriers, to share information and sell cybersecurity technology between nations, and help undeveloped nation build a safer cyberspace. The white house has published an international strategy for cyberspace. (Prosperity, Security and Openness in a Network World). The document enforces that vision of many, and share the same perspectives. Such as cybersecurity has become a global problem, therefore it requires a global approach from different nations to combat it. Whitehouse.gov (2011, May) states, through our international relationships and affiliations, we will seek to ensure that as many stakeholders as possible are included in this vision of cyberspace precisely because of its economic, social, political, and security benefits. These efforts will be supported by meaningful collaboration with the private sector at home and abroad. Additionally, the US will use diplomacy to create, and incentives to build an international consensus of the intrinsic value of an open interoperable, secure, and reliable cyberspace (Whitehouse.gov, 2011, May).
Business Need for Cooperation on a Global Basis
Even though the battle to protect the cyberspace is being fought with an Einstein’s IQ, there is lots of instances that shows an impressive level of ingenuity posed by the bad guys as well. The business approach around cybersecurity need to be remodeled. The remodel should aim for a long term solution as oppose to just a balance. In order for business to create new model, that apply globally, it is imperative to businesses located around the world to cooperate with a creation of a model with a collection of responsibilities built globally among companies. The focus of the model would be the capacity to share information in real time. In addition to the capacity to share information, the model incentive companies in different countries to start working together to the creation of a cyberspace that is not fragile, but the one that evolves and learn from lessons of the past. Cybercrime is treated as an enterprise model that operate around the world. And if business don’t want their operation to be effected in other part of the world and at home, they must start working collectively by sharing intelligence, and help each other. Nonetheless, company’s representatives (CIO and CSIO) as part of this effort to gain and share information, initiate to look for expand their network community by networking with the industry in other countries, finding trusted partner locally and globally. This is a way to build a cybersecurity infrastructure globally moreover, this will be effective to the very least to mitigate an attack. Despite a number of reports showing conscience within the need for a global collaboration to defend the cyberspace, the article “The world must cooperate to make cyberspace safe” stated, unfortunately, a growing number of countries are starting to favor domestic sources of ICT supply under the banner of cyber or national security. Ironically, such moves can actually increase security risks (Hietala, J., Suffolk, J., Nassar, S., & McConnell, B. 2015, September 08). This school of thought represents a step to the opposite direction, if we want a safer cyberspace, it has to be a global effort otherwise cybercriminals will have a safe haven in those countries that refuses to cooperate. An example of a company that could be a partner within the creation of a safer cyberspace is Amazon. This company run its business operation a 100% online year around 24/7. Amazon employs 230, 800 people, and Amazon’s fiscal year of 2015 was $107.01 B (Sec.gov, 2014, December 31). Additionally In 2015 Amazon reported to have 304 million active customer accounts (Statista, 2016). Moreover, Amazon has recognize other risks the company could face within the cyberspace. It is on Amazon’s 10-K filing Annual Report. The company has major concerns about a cyberattack on its cyberspace which could be a system being infected by Spyware, viruses, phishing, spam e-mails, denial of services attack, data theft, and computer intrusion (Sec.gov, 2014, December 31). A company with this size of operation, revenue, and concerns with its cyberspace, undoubtedly is a desirable partner to help create a global safer cyberspace.
Alliances, Associations, Public/Private Partnerships
The facts speaks for itself, not a day go by without a cybersecurity incident worldwide, and that is just a caviar of the actual magnitude of the attacks. A large number cyberattacks is not reported by companies. Reason being, loss of reputation, regulatory prosecution, and public humiliation on the news. The world agree, we must cooperate to make cyberspace safer. At the same time, the criminals need to know for certain that they will be prosecuted despite the location that they conduct criminal activities. The law enforcement entity that has the task of the global fight against cybercrime is the Interpol. The Interpol cybercrimes roles range from operational, investigative, support, cyber intelligence, analysis, digital forensics... In addition the Interpol has cutting-edge research and development facility, which opened in 2014, leverages global cyber-expertise from law enforcement and key private sector partners (Interpol, 2016). The Interpol partner with law enforcement worldwide, as well as public companies and aid them to investigate cybercriminlas. There is other alliances such as the National Cybersecurity Alliance. This is a nonprofit organization that works with the DHS, private sector sponsors and nonprofit sponsors. Their mission is to promote cybersecurity awareness. NCSA board members include representatives from ADP, AT&T, Bank of America, Comcast Corporation, EMC Corporation, ESET, Facebook, Google, Intel, McAfee, Microsoft, Raytheon, Symantec, Verizon and Visa (Rsaconference, 2015, April 13). From its board members is fair the assumption of the cooperation worldwide to some extend, for the fact that they have business operation in different parts of the globe. A different association that assist law enforcement in combating cybercrimes is the International Cybersecurity Protection Alliance (ICSPA). They assist governments and institutions around the globe, in addition to have partnership with industry around the world in more than 42 countries (Icspa.org, 2014). This is a typical example of coming together to make the cyberspace safer, but we need a broader scale worldwide.
Recommendations
The creation of a safer cyberspace is a never ending mission. This mission will require a continuous effort of investment, technology and knowledge. The three recommendation action that could be deployed globally by all stakeholders to make the cyberspace safer is undoubtedly information sharing. This can be accomplished with the creation of a global CERT composed with all the continents to share information about new developments with the cyberspace as it happens just like the US CERT, EU CERT, and AP-CERT. in addition to share information, underdeveloped countries are incapable economically, technologically and knowledgeable to develop a secure cyberspace infrastructure. The develop country will have to help these countries. Lastly, one issue that holds back cooperation within cyberspace is government barriers. Global cooperation in cybersecurity can immensely grow with the elimination of legal barriers imposed by government that makes difficult to buy, and sell technology to other nation. The very least the legal barriers could be less restricted.
Conclusion
A global safer cyberspace is an audacious project that will require countries, organizations and many great minds to come together. With the cooperation, communication of the global cyberspace community, this collaborative effort will bring us to the future we seek, a global safer cyberspace.
References
Hietala, J., Suffolk, J., Nassar, S., & McConnell, B. (2015, September 08). The world must cooperate to make cyberspace safe. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/252713-the-world-must-cooperate-to-make-cyberspace-safe
Internetsociety.org. (2015, January 22). Internet Society Approach to Cyber Security Policy. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-approach-cyber-security-policy
Icspa.org. (2014) Fighting Cybercrime Together. Retrieved April 29, 2016, from https://www.icspa.org/about-us/
Interpol. (2016). Cybercrime. Retrieved April 29, 2016, from http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Cybercrime/Cybercrime
Rsaconference. (2015, April 13). National Cyber Security Alliance Aligns with RSA Conference to Empower Digital Citizens to Stay Current in the Ever-changing Cybersecurity Environment | RSA Conference. Retrieved April 29, 2016, from http://www.rsaconference.com/press/30/national-cyber-security-alliance-aligns-with-rs
Statista. (2016). Annual Amazon accounts worldwide 2015 | Statistic. Retrieved March 26, 2016, from http://www.statista.com/statistics/237810/number-of-active-amazon-customer-accounts-worldwide/
Sec.gov. (2014, December 31). AMZN-2014.12.31-10K. Retrieved March 25, 2016, from https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872415000006/amzn-20141231x10k.htm Hoover's, Inc. (2016). AMAZON.COM, INC. Retrieved March 25, 2016, from http://subscriber.hoovers.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/H/company360/quickReport.html?companyId=51493000000000&newsCompanyDuns=884745530
Whitehouse.gov. (2011, May). INTER NATIONAL STR ATEGY FOR CYBERSPACE. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
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