Once again, I’ve attended the CERIAS Security Symposium held on the campus of Purdue University. This is one of several posts summarizing the talks I attended.

Thursday’s keynote address was delivered by Christopher Painter, the Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the U.S. State Department. Mister Painter has a long and distinguished career in law and policy, starting with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, and moving through several roles in the Justice Department. He served as acting Cyber Czar during his time in the White House, and finally ended up in the State Department.

Cyber security issues have started receiving increased attention in recent years. Painter said President Obama came to the White House with a unique understanding of security because his 2008 campaign was hacked. In his 2013 State of the Union address, Mr. Obama became the first president to address cyber security on such a stage.

As Todd Gebhart noted the morning before, conversation has evolved from being purely technical to involving senior policy officials. This requires the technical community to work with the policy community so that they policy is informed. Painter takes heart in observing senior officials discuss cyber security issues beyond the scope of their prepared notes.

Although the State Department has a role in responding to DoS attacks against diplomatic institutions, the primary focus seems to be on fostering international cooperation. The international nature of cyber crime makes it very difficult to combat. Many different targets and intents are involved, as well. Although there have not been any [publicly reported] terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure, the threat exists. There are financial motivations for other cyber crimes. For example, one man spoofed Bloomberg web pages to publish fake articles in order to manipulate the stock price of a company. Although he got cold feet about executing the trade, people lost money in their own trades.

Regardless of the specific incident, the international nature of cyber crime makes it difficult to pursue and prosecute offenders. Some governments are more interested in “regime security”, protecting the interests of their own authoritarian states. The goal of U.S. cyber policy is an open, secure, reliable Internet system. To accomplish this, the State Department is promoting a shared framework of existing norms grounded in existing international law. Larger embassies have created “cyber attache” positions in order to help foster international cooperation.

Other posts from this event:

• Opening keynote
• Panel #1
• Fireside chat
• Panel #3
• Featured commentary and tech talk #3