There is no question that in this rapidly advancing technology-driven era there is an exponential need for cyber security to keep pace with the risks and threats that are posed to individuals, businesses and nations around the globe.
According to USA Today, the president and chief legal officer of Microsoft, Brad Smith, addressed that topic and more during a recent policy speech at the RSA computer security conference in San Francisco, a speech in which he called for the creation of a new international governing body on cyber security and for major tech companies to pledge neutrality in any hypothetical cyber war between nations.
Remarking that “cyberspace is the new battlefield,” Smith demanded tech companies commit themselves to be “100% defense and zero percent offense.”
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A blog post by Smith paralleled and expanded upon the central topic of his speech, namely the need for a sort of “digital Geneva Convention” that would set up an international framework by which participating governments and tech companies would pledge to protect or refrain from attacking civilian interests and infrastructures at risk of cyber attack.
Likening the effort to the post-World War II Geneva Convention that set the rules of war in the age of the superpowers, Smith also called for tech companies such as his own to be a “digital Switzerland” in any future cyber war between nation-states, focusing solely on the need to protect and provide support for customers in all locations throughout the world.
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“The tech sector plays a unique role as the internet’s first responders,” Smith wrote in the blog post. “We therefore should commit ourselves to collective action that will make the internet a safer place, affirming a role as a neutral Digital Switzerland that assists customers everywhere.”
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“We will assist and protect customers everywhere. We will not aid in attacking customers anywhere. We need to retain the world’s trust,” Smith stated, according to The Daily Caller. “This commitment to 100 percent defense and zero percent offense has been fundamental to our approach as a company and an industry. And it needs to remain this way in the future.”
Imagine if the top technology- and industry-leading manufacturing companies in the U.S. had adopted the same outlook during World War II, such as General Motors, Boeing or Lockheed Martin, and refrained from assisting the U.S. government greatly in combating our nation’s enemies, choosing instead to focus solely on protecting and supporting their customers wherever they may be, perhaps even in Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that, like it or not, when the chips are falling and rival nations become embroiled in a global conflagration, businesses will place themselves at great risk if they try to remain completely neutral and refuse to take sides, particularly if they refuse to side with the nation in which they are based.
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