20 Nations Reach Agreement on UN Cyber Code of Conduct

On August 17, 20 countries, including China, Russia, U.S., U.K., France, Japan, Brazil and Korea, reached an agreement on a preliminary Code of Conduct for cyberspace, and submitted the relevant document to the General Secretary of the United Nations (UN) in time for this fall's General Assembly session.

According to the Global Times, the document indicated that all countries must use cyber technologies for peaceful purposes -- countries shall not use cyberspace to attack other countries' nuclear power sites, banks, transportation, water supply systems and other critical infrastructure, and shall not implant any "back-door" programs into IT products. The document also called for collaborative combat of cyber attacks and hacking. According to a Russian presidential special representative for international cooperation in the field of information security, there are close to a million attacks every week between China and the U.S.

 
Once passed by the UN General Assembly, this international Code of Conduct for cybersecurity, which was initially proposed by China and Russia with support from the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICs, will be a voluntary, non-binding document.