U.S. Deputy Secretary Richard R. Verma and Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel C. Fick led a discussion on how to better secure cyberspace and support recovery of partners that suffer a significant disruptive cyber attack. Eleven senior leaders joined the United States on the margins of the 78th UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, September 19.
Cyberspace and digital technologies offer tremendous opportunities for economic growth and development for all UN member states. Cyber attacks carried out by criminals and nation states demonstrate the risk that cyber vulnerabilities can pose to global peace, security, and economic development.
For more than two decades, UN member states have built consensus on a normative framework for responsible state behavior in cyberspace that includes the applicability of international law, non-binding peacetime norms of responsible state behavior, confidence building measures, and capacity building. To advance collective action on those commitments, leaders focused on practical steps to implement the framework, provide support to partners responding to and recovering from significant cyber incidents, and help all countries realize the tremendous potential of a digitally connected future.
During the event, Deputy Secretary Verma emphasized the U.S. commitment to work with other countries to strengthen global cybersecurity. He also reiterated U.S. support for the creation of a new Programme of Action at the United Nations as a flexible venue where UN member states can engage in practical discussions on how best to secure cyberspace for all. This is a decisive decade, and we are all in it together.
