First Global Cybersecurity Initiative is Ready for Take-off

The International Telecommunication Union's global cybersecurity agenda that has been in the making for the past 18 months will finally see the light of the day in a few days from now.

The ITU -- the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies -- has announced that in this year's meeting of its 46-member council, to be held in mid-November, it will operationalize its Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA). This aims to provide ITU's 191 member nations with the expertise, facilities and resources to enable the global community to effectively address the most serious forms of cyber threats.

Launched on 17 May 2007, GCA is an ITU framework for international cooperation for crafting and implementing solutions to enhance confidence and security in the information society.

According to Geneva-based Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division, ITU, although there are many large, or even global-scale initiatives on cybersecurity, there isn't yet one that builds an international framework of cybersecurity principles and best practices that countries around the world could follow, maximizing and coordinating efforts to stamp out cybercrime.

"There was a feeling that more needs to be done and much more could be done." says Ntoko, "And GCA stems from exactly that realization."

He adds that GCA is unique in the sense it aims to link all existing initiatives and provide an overarching framework for consensus, which will allow a coordinated set of actions to strengthen cybersecurity on a global basis.

For effective implementation of this agenda, ITU has also tied up with International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism (IMPACT), a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based organization that claims to be the first global public-private initiative against cyber-terrorism.

In the high level meeting of the ITU council -- which is something like a board meeting of a company -- scheduled for November 11th and 12th, "the IMPACT-GCA" initiative will be ratified

The collaboration is aimed at building synergies to provide: real-time analysis, aggregation and dissemination of global cyber threat information; early warning system and emergency response to global cyber threats; and training and skills development on the technical, legal and policy aspects of cybersecurity.

GCA will be housed and operate from the IMPACT Centre in Kuala Lumpur, but it will also maintain  ITU's 'virtual showcase' in its headquarters in  Geneva, from where it will expand and evolve over time to increasingly provide services in ITU's GCA.

"The IMPACT-GCA collaboration is notable because it will result into the first early warning system for cybercrime," says Ntoko adding that the council meeting will also reveal the responsibilities and the action plan of the IMPACT-GCA collaboration.

Besides launching the IMPACT-GCA collobaroation, the November's  meeting is also significant for the fact that it will announce ITU's first online protection plan for children.  "As many as 60% of children and teenagers use online chatrooms regularly, and evidence suggests that as many of three-quarters of these may be willing to share personal information in exchange for online goods and services. In some countries, as many as one in five children may be targeted by a predator or paedophile each year. These trends are increasingly true in many emerging and developing countries as well," says ITU.