In a speech to top U.K. officials and CIOs last week, Eugene Kaspersky, Kaspersky Lab’s co-founder and CEO, called for stronger relations between the government and the private sector. He warned that critical infrastructure, manufacturing and communications would continue to remain at risk if action wasn’t taken.
“Today, sophisticated malicious programs – cyberweapons – have the power to disable companies, cripple governments and bring whole nations to their knees by attacking critical infrastructure in sectors such as communications, finance, transportation and utilities. The consequences for human populations could, as a result, be literally catastrophic,” Mr. Kaspersky said.
He was addressing a room filled with people who are keenly aware of the point behind his message, yet facing the struggle to deal with it. In attendance were UK government officials, including Adrian Leppard, Commissioner of the City of London Police; Stephen Harrison, Chief Executive of the National Fraud Authority; and other peers of the realm.
Further, representing the private sector in the U.K. was also attended by a number of CSOs from British enterprise, including HSBC, Unilever, Vodafone and Barclays. Mr. Kaspersky noted that greater investment in education from both government and industry is needed to ensure a continuous flow of talent rising up through the ranks.
“But why should state intelligence and defence bother cooperating with the private sector? In the words of Francis Maude, Minister of the Cabinet Office, ‘We need to team up to fight common enemies but the key to cooperating, in a spirit of openness and sharing, are guarantees to maintain the confidentiality of data shared’,” Mr. Kaspersky said.
“The private sector – particularly IT and security related industries, and also certain key critical industries for which IT security has long been at the top of the agenda – has a wealth of front line cyber-battle experience which state bodies will greatly benefit from having access to. This benefit should then dovetail back to the advantage of the private sector, through the added muscle of state bodies and the enhanced, overall visibility of cyberthreats provided by the private-public partnership.”
The speech was given shortly after Kaspersky Lab announced a partnership of technical cooperation with INTERPOL. According to the announcement, Kaspersky will send experts to INTERPOL’s Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore once it opens, in addition to sharing cyber analytics on an on-going basis.