Given the emerging threat of cyber warfare, India and the United Kingdom on Friday firmed up a partnership to develop capabilities to counter this challenge with a focus on cyber governance, deterrence, resilience and capacity building.
Underlining the importance of cyber domain, the two countries issued a joint statement after the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The statement said the two countries will work in partnership to increase mutual cyber resilience, taking a holistic and whole-of-society approach.
The two countries will complete joint work to identify shared vulnerabilities and promote effective public-private partnerships, with a view to ensuring decisions on systems design and deployment take into account public safety protections and increasing the awareness and ability of the public and infrastructure owners, to increase resilience against the malicious cyber activity.
“We will continue to work closely with industry and through international standards organisations to ensure the Internet of Things connectable devices are secure by design. We will support efforts to increase the availability and diversity of cyber skills in our workforce and promote people-to-people and educational links to enhance awareness in the domain of cyberspace,” it said.
In May 2021, Modi and Johnson agreed to an Enhanced Cyber Security Partnership, it said, adding today, “India and the United Kingdom outline our commitment to a joint programme of cooperation to deliver this partnership, focused on cyber governance.”
The statement said, “Our 2030 vision includes revitalised and dynamic connections between our people and enhanced defence and security cooperation that brings a more secure Indo-Pacific.”
Through cyberspace, there is a digital living bridge that allows our citizens, students and businesses to interact and promote our shared prosperity. As we take advantage of the new opportunities this creates we must also protect ourselves against evolving threats, it said.
The two sides said the rules-based international order must be upheld online, just as it is offline. India and the United Kingdom are concerned by the increased willingness of States and their proxies to undertake malicious cyber activities contrary to identified norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, they said.
“We will deepen coordination on mitigation strategies against Advanced Persistent Threats as well as cooperation on tackling cybercrime,” the statement said.
India and the United Kingdom recognise the vital role of voluntary and non-binding norms of responsible state behaviour in reducing risks to international peace, security and stability as reaffirmed by the 2021 reports of the UN Sixth Group of Governmental Experts on Advancing Responsible State Behaviour in Cyberspace, they said.
“We draw attention to the norms prohibiting the use of cyber tools to intentionally damage or impair critical infrastructure and the obligation of States to respond to appropriate requests to mitigate malicious ICT activity aimed at the critical infrastructure of another state emanating from their territory,” the statement said.
As per the statement, the two countries will work to elaborate under the UN framework a comprehensive international convention on countering the use by criminals of ICTs to increase international cooperation on preventing, deterring, mitigating, investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes, ensuring speedy justice for the victims of cybercrime and taking into account the need for appropriate safeguards including data protection.
