The United States and United Kingdom have agreed to strengthen cyber security cooperation with each other in several areas, including the sharing of threat information and intelligence, during meetings this week between President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron in Washington, D.C.
To bolster information sharing, the countries have agreed to create a joint cyber cell—which will have an operational presence in the United States and United Kingdom featuring co-located staff—that include the National Security Agency and FBI and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters and MI5 Security Service. The cell “will focus on specific cyber defense topics and enable cyber threat information and data to be shared at pace and at greater scale,” according to a White House fact sheet release on Jan. 16.
The two countries already collaborate in the area of cyber security through the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the CERT-UK.
In addition, the United States and United Kingdom plan to conduct joint cyber security and network defense exercises to improve their ability to respond to cyber attacks, with the first exercise focused on the financial sector.
“War games are a good way to get one step ahead, shifting to a proactive rather than purely reactive stance,” Mike Lloyd, chief technology officer with RedSeal, which provides software and services for network security, said in a blog post on the company’s website. He said having the United States and United Kingdom work together on cyber “war-games” is good.
The fact sheet also said that the two governments will work with industry to “promote and alight our cybersecurity best practices and standards,” which will include the Cybersecurity Framework launched by the United States last year and the U.K.’s Cyber Essentials framework that was published last year to help organizations bolster their cyber defenses.
The enhanced security cooperation will also feature academic elements. Both countries will provide funding for a Fulbright Cyber Security Award, which will allow scholars from both countries to conduct cyber security research. There will also be a cyber security competition between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Univ. of Cambridge, the first of many international university cyber tilts.
“The aim is to enhance cybersecurity research at the highest academic level within both countries to bolster our cyber defenses,” the fact sheet said.
The cooperative agreements between the U.S. and U.K. governments follow a surge of new legislative proposals by Congress and the Obama administration for boosting cyber threat information sharing between the private sector and DHS.