Cameron warns about large scale cyber espionage

UK PRIME MINISTER David Cameron has warned that the UK Government is seeing "attempts on an industrial scale" to steal state secrets, and promised to respond to them "as robustly" as other threats to national security.

Cameron and later US Vice President Joe Biden appeared today at the London Conference on Cyberspace to stress their commitment to an open, secure and free internet, safe from government intervention.

In a surprise appearance on stage, Cameron argued that the internet has already been a "force for economic, social and political good" in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Kenya, and can also play a big part in helping the UK out of its current economic slump.

But he urged the world to "act together" to find a solution to the growing problem of cyber crime, and warned that international cyber security is a "real and pressing concern".

"Highly sophisticated techniques are being employed," he said. "These are attacks on our national interest. They are unacceptable. And we will respond to them as robustly as we do any other national security threat."

Britain has already allocated £650m towards a cyber defence programme, and has prioritised cyber attacks as a tier-one threat. The government will shortly set out a "new approach for better online security, crime prevention and public awareness", explained Cameron. He added that other countries are being invited to join a network "wide enough and powerful enough to face this threat down".

One of these countries no doubt is the US, and indeed US Vice President Joe Biden touched on many of the same themes as Cameron and William Hague during his presentation, urging all countries to join the US in its "bet" that an open internet will ultimately benefit everyone.

Biden warned countries, no doubt thinking of China and other nations that exercise internet censorship, that they cannot make the internet "closed to freedom of expression but open to business".

"In some places bloggers are imprisoned and abused for criticising the government. The US stands against these acts and for internet freedom," he said.

"We are at a pivotal moment. The number of people online is about to make a huge jump and countries have to make important choices about the policies they embrace."

In the spirit of co-operation on the internet, Biden added that the US is working closely with Russia to establish links between both nations' computer response teams and nuclear risk reduction centres to improve communications in the event of an "alarming incident". µ