As cyberattacks against major companies continue to increase, part of the measures being taken by the US and the UK is to work more closely together and test their cyber defenses and experience through cyberattacks against each other.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said that these war games are already taking place between the two countries, but there is a need to make efforts to accelerate and optimize the protection of citizens' and businesses' data.
In an interview with the BBC, Cameron states that cyber cells on both sides of the Atlantic, in MI5 and the FBI, specifically for the exchange of information.
The aim of these penetration tests is to increase the defenses of major companies in both countries. In the first wave of attacks, the targets will be the Bank of England, commercial financial institutions, the City of London and Wall Street.
In addition, during the exercises, defense mechanisms of other targets that are part of the national infrastructure will be tested.
The decision to cooperate to strengthen cyber security among law enforcement agencies comes in the wake of recent attacks targeting major companies, such as the one involving Sony Pictures Entertainmentin 2014.
However, the most serious ones also occurred last year in the US, such as the attack on JPMorgan, which affected over 83 million people. Home Depot was hit by a cyberattack that led to the exposure of information from 56 million credit cards and 56 million email addresses.
Most recently, the Twitter and YouTube accounts of US Central Command ( CENTCOM ), a division of the Pentagon that oversees military activities in the Middle East region, were hacked by a group of hackers calling themselves CyberCaliphate .
David Cameron also spoke about the government's need to increase surveillance capabilities regarding encryption in communications software.
“It must be able, in extreme cases, to cut off contact between terrorists, whether they are using landlines, mobile phones or the internet,” Cameron said, adding that “we need to work with these big companies, have good relationships with them to make sure we can keep people safe.”.
