• Agenda and Annotated Agenda (PDF)

 

13 September
08:00 am – 09:15 am	Registration of delegates

The World e-Parliament Conference 2012 was held at the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, in Rome, on 13, 14 and 15 September. The Conference concluded on the International Day of Democracy, established in 2008 by the UN General Assembly.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will hold a Special Event on Cybersecurity and Development, organized jointly by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the International Telecommunication Union, to be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 9 December.

The UK government is failing to take a strong lead in protecting critical systems such as power and water from cyber attack, according to a leading think tank. Chatham House said there was a reluctance to share information with institutions that might be targeted. It also criticised those same institutions for putting up with an "unacceptably high level of risk".

IT security firm McAfee claims to have uncovered one of the largest ever series of cyber attacks. It lists 72 different organisations that were targeted over five years, including the International Olympic Committee, the UN and security firms.

The Department of Defense released the DoD Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace (DSOC). It is the first DoD unified strategy for cyberspace and officially encapsulates a new way forward for DoD’s military, intelligence and business operations. “It is critical to strengthen our cyber capabilities to address the cyber threats we’re facing,” said Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta.

The Pentagon has admitted it suffered a major cyber attack in which thousands of files were taken by foreign hackers. Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn said that in a March attack and other breaches, hackers had taken information on "our most sensitive systems". The admission came as the Pentagon rolled out a strategy for strengthening US cyber capabilities and addressing threats and attacks in cyberspace. The plan would treat cyberspace in a similar manner to land, air and sea.

There is no such thing as 100 percent security, on- or offline, but we must strive to strengthen our defenses against those who are constantly working to do us harm. There are some in Congress who resist taking action on cyber-threats this year, but we must put partisan politics aside, given the danger of this threat. The alternative could be a digital Pearl Harbor — and another day of infamy.

Online security risks have become increasingly prevalent with the likes of Anonymous and LulzSec continuing to expose the sorry state of corporate network security, and policymakers are clamoring to “do something” to address the threat. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in Washington to employ the rhetoric of war when talking about cybersecurity, which is a very dangerous tendency.

The United States government is building its own "scale model" of the internet to carry out cyber war games. Several organisations, including the defence company Lockheed Martin, are working on prototypes of the "virtual firing range". The system will allow researchers to simulate attacks by foreign powers and from hackers based inside the US.

Germany's interior minister opened a new cybersecurity centre to protect the country's infrastructure from what he said was a growing menace posed by hackers. "Protecting critical infrastructure is at the core of cybersecurity," Hans-Peter Friedrich said in Bonn. "We are forced to admit that the danger of attacks on these systems is growing."

Hackers have disrupted Malaysian government websites, authorities said, following threats by anti-censorship "Anonymous" activists and a cyberattack on the CIA by an allied group. The strike against 51 government websites, which disrupted at least 41 of them according to Malaysia's Internet watchdog, came after the Anonymous group sabotaged Turkish sites to protest against Internet censorship.

Private computer experts advised U.S. officials on how cyberattacks could damage Libya's oil and gas infrastructure and rob Moammar Gadhafi's regime of crucial oil revenue, according to a study obtained by hackers. It remains unclear who commissioned "Project Cyber Dawn" and how much of a role the U.S. government played in it, but it shows the increasing amount of work being done by private companies in exposing foreign governments' vulnerabilities to cyber attack.

Hackers who broke into the International Monetary Fund's computer system may have been backed by a nation state, according to security experts. They point to the sophisticated nature of the attack and the resources needed to develop it.

US officials said they have ordered a security review after hackers managed to break into the Senate website.