Government officials and business leaders from around the world are beginning a three-day meeting in Texas to discuss cybersecurity.
The Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit, hosted by the EastWest Institute, will feature discussions on ways to protect the world's digital infrastructure from electronic threats.
Among those scheduled to address the gathering, being held in the wake of sophisticated cyberattacks on Google which the internet giant said originated in China, are US President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor James Jones and White House cybersecurity co-ordinator Howard Schmidt.
The EastWest Institute, a non-partisan think tank, is bringing together 400 government officials, business leaders and cybersecurity experts from China, France, Germany, India, Russia, the US and nearly three dozen other countries to ‘map the dangers and areas of cooperation’ in cyberspace.
‘The skyrocketing severity and frequency of cyberattacks against businesses, governments and other institutions globally pose an ominous threat to the stability of the international economy and peace itself,’ according to the EastWest Institute.
‘Nations have well established rules of the game on land, sea, air and in outer space,’ it said. ‘There is a significant lack of such rules in the fifth common domain - cyberspace.’
Officials and business leaders attending the meeting said that cyberattacks could have a major economic impact.
Participants also agreed that international tensions are likely to escalate if concerns over cybersecurity are not addressed.
