Lynn Discusses Cybersecurity with NATO, U.S. Leaders

BRUSSELS, Bel­gium — Deputy Defense Sec­re­tary William J. Lynn III met with NATO and U.S. lead­ers at the alliance head­quar­ters here today to dis­cuss the way for­ward in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty.

Deputy Defense Sec­re­tary William J. Lynn III, right, walks with Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied com­man­der for Europe, at NATO head­quar­ters in Brus­sels, Bel­gium, Jan. 24, 2011. Lynn is meet­ing with alliance offi­cials on NATO’s approach to cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. DOD pho­to by Air Force Mas­ter Sgt. Jer­ry Mor­ri­son Click to enlarge

At the alliance’s Novem­ber sum­mit in Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal, NATO’s heads of state and lead­ers of gov­ern­ment agreed that the threats in cyber­space have grown and that the alliance must con­front them. 

The threats are more fre­quent, more orga­nized and more cost­ly, a joint state­ment released at the sum­mit said, and “they can reach a thresh­old that threat­ens nation­al and Euro-Atlantic pros­per­i­ty, secu­ri­ty and stability.” 

The threats, the state­ment added, can come from for­eign mil­i­taries and intel­li­gence ser­vices, orga­nized crime, ter­ror­ist and extrem­ist groups, or even individuals. 

In Lis­bon, NATO lead­ers called on the alliance to devel­op the abil­i­ty to pre­vent, detect, defend against and recov­er from cyber attacks. The alliance must pro­tect crit­i­cal net­works and put in place process­es to lever­age nation­al cyber defense capa­bil­i­ties, the alliance’s lead­ers added. 

Part­ner­ships between the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors are essen­tial, as gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary net­works rou­tine­ly use pri­vate net­works to com­mu­ni­cate. Lynn fur­thered the pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship con­cept dur­ing a round­table at NATO this morn­ing. Accom­pa­nied by Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied com­man­der for Europe, the deputy sec­re­tary stressed the need for pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties to work togeth­er to find a bal­ance between open­ness and secu­ri­ty, accord­ing to defense offi­cials present at the meeting.

Tomor­row, Lynn con­tin­ues the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty con­ver­sa­tion by tak­ing part in a high-lev­el meet­ing of nation­al pol­i­cy advi­sors on NATO cyber defense at the alliance’s head­quar­ters. He also will meet with Euro­pean Union High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cather­ine Ash­ton and the new­ly appoint­ed chief exec­u­tive of the Euro­pean Defense Agency, Claude-France Arnould. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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