World Economic Forum Cyber Resilience Initiative to Safeguard Digital Environment

World Economic Forum launches initiative on Cyber Resilience: www.weforum.org/cyber

The World Economic Forum today launched a new initiative to improve global resilience to major cyberrisks. "Partnering for Cyber Resilience" is a set of shared principles, signed and endorsed by chief executives of companies who recognize the interdependence of all organizations in combating cyberrisks and their role in contributing to a safer digital environment.

The Partnering for Cyber Resilience - Principles and Guidelines initiative has been developed through multistakeholder dialogue across the globe, with Deloitte LLP acting as Project Advisers. The initiative aims to provide a common framework for leaders to align individual actions for collective good. CEO signature of the Commitment to Cyber Resilience commits companies to board-level awareness and leadership, and the development of an implementation programme that also encourages suppliers and customers to adopt a similar level of awareness and commitment when appropriate.

"We need to recognize that making the world more resilient to cyberrisks is a challenge that can only be addressed collectively by policy-makers, business and civil society," said Alan Marcus, Senior Director and Head of Information Technology and Telecommunications Industries at the World Economic Forum USA, speaking at the launch of the initiative today. "This initiative is essentially an attempt to immunize the Internet. The more stakeholders endorse and implement the principles the higher the chances to safeguard the digital environment."

Organizations attending the Annual Meeting have already begun to sign up to the Commitment to Cyber Resilience, among them the members of the initiative's steering board: Ian Livingston, Chief Executive Officer, BT Group; William E. McCracken, Chief Executive Officer, CA Technologies; Michael Chertoff, Co-Founder and Managing Principal, Chertoff Group; Robert Wainwright, Director, Europol (European Police); Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Tata Consultancy Services.

Speaking on a panel yesterday, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President and Commissioner for the Digital Agenda at the European Commission, described her belief that the future economy is so inherently coupled to the Internet that cyberrisk should be added to standard corporate reporting.

Her comments were echoed by other panellists in a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters that explored the risks of a hyperconnected world. Rod A. Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), highlighted the scale of the problem by referring to his own law of cybersecurity: "Everything attached to a network can be hacked and everything is being attached to a network," he said.

Chandrasekaran described the importance of consistent processes and uniform policy frameworks, which can be implemented internationally. He cited the World Economic Forum's initiative on Cyber Resilience as an important example of standardization.

With record participation of over 2,600 leaders from government, academia, business and civil society, the theme of this year's Annual Meeting is The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.

The Co-Chairs of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 are: Yasuchika Hasegawa, President and Chief Executive Officer, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan; Vikram Pandit, Chief Executive Officer, Citi, USA; Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever, United Kingdom; Alejandro Ramirez, Chief Executive Officer, Cinepolis, Mexico; Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook, USA; and Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell, Netherlands.