UK foreign secretary calls for cooperation on cybersecurity

<p>LONDON &mdash; U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday urged global cooperation to combat cyberattacks by “hostile state actors" and criminal gangs.</p>
<p>Raab also pledged 22 million pounds ($31 million) in support to “vulnerable” countries in Africa and the Indo-Pacific to improve their digital defense capacity.</p>
<p>He said Britain and the West must step up on cybersecurity or face the “multilateral vacuum” being filled by China and Russia.</p>
<p>“We need the combination of resilient defenses but also offensive capabilities, and the global diplomatic clout which comes with being a modern cyberpower,” Raab said in a speech at a National Cyber Security Centre conference in London.</p>
<p>He said the funding would go to national cyber response teams, awareness campaigns and an Interpol operations hub in Africa.</p>
<p>The foreign secretary accused Moscow and Beijing of being among the “authoritarian regimes” failing to take action against cyberattacks coming from their own soil.</p>
<p>He said elections had become a “prime target” for interference, with the aim of destabilizing democratic states.</p>
<p>The Biden administration last month announced sanctions against Russia and expelled diplomats over a massive hacking campaign which targeted federal agencies, known as the SolarWinds breach, as well as for vote meddling.</p>
<p>Russia, which denied involvement in the breach, responded in kind against what it called unprovoked action.</p>
<p>China in April denied links to work by hackers to spy for months on dozens of high-value government, defense industry and financial sector targets in the U.S. and Europe through Pulse Connect Secure devices.</p>
<p>Raab also highlighted attacks on COVID-19 vaccine research programs and supply chains in the U.K., as well as universities, schools and hospitals. “It seems that almost nothing is off limits for cyber criminals,” he said.</p>
<p>Raab had met with Group of 7 foreign ministers in London earlier this month, with security high on the agenda.</p>
<p>Top diplomats from Australia, India, South Africa and South Korea had also been invited, with Raab saying gaining the trust of “like-minded” countries was “essential”.</p>