Microsoft, Google and Samsung back cybersecurity pledge coming out of Paris.
Microsoft Corp., Google and Samsung Electronics Co. are backing a cybersecurity pledge coming out of Paris that promises to unite tech giants and governments in battling election tampering, compromised electronic components and software hacks.
Hundreds of companies, nonprofit groups and governments — including France and the U.S., but not China or Russia — have signed the “Paris call for trust and security in cyberspace,” which came about under the auspices of President Emmanuel Macron, French officials said.
The tech pledge is a reaction to cyberwars that, over the past years, disrupted elections in places like the U.S. and France and hobbled businesses through attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya. It builds on previous accords like the one signed in April by the tech industry, but reaches beyond just companies or governments for a broader alliance.
“Since 2016, we’ve seen attacks by some countries undermining democracies,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, told reporters in Paris.
Microsoft spotted cyber-assault attempts on all major candidates during the French elections last year and, in the U.S., some attacks were successful during the 2016 elections, he said.
“It’s important that the world’s democracies come together,” Smith said. “Almost never does the world come together in a way that is global — there are steppingstones to a global consensus. It’s especially important that the likeminded countries come together.”
Macron had pushed for the initiative, whose unveiling comes a day after dozens of world leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday for the centenary of the end of World War I.
Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum organized at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Macron said it’s urgent to better regulate the internet.
The French leader also said that Facebook had accepted to let a team of French officials observe the way it monitors and removes hate speech content.
It will happen in the early part of next year, and the goal is to “elaborate precise, concrete joint proposals about the fight against hate speech and offensive content,” Macron said.
Speaking at another summit focusing on new technologies in Paris city hall, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “one of the things we have to do as a society as tech leaders but also as government is reassure people that the innovation, technology … is going to empower them in ways they will feel part of the world we’re building, of the workplaces we’re creating.”
Macron hosted some 70 executives, politicians, city mayors and entrepreneurs for lunch on Monday at the Elysee presidential palace to discuss technology: specifically cybersecurity threats, election tampering and fake news. The guest list included executives from Microsoft and Facebook Inc., the Paris and London mayors, as well as representatives from the UN, the EU Commission and governments of countries including the U.K.
The announcement comes amid a series of events taking place in Paris, including the Peace Forum and Internet Governance Forum, and following commemorations of the end of World War I that Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin attended Sunday.
As part of the technology-focused accord unveiled Monday, country chiefs are committing to protecting citizens from government-financed cyber-weapons. Key engagements from technology companies include upgrading products throughout their life cycle to address security loopholes, and preserving the integrity of the supply chain.
“It’s increasingly important that we keep components for digital products protected, from a hardware and software basis,” Microsoft’s Smith said. “Ultimately it means having devices with hardware and software we can trust, that the components in these devices don’t have vulnerabilities that were placed there for the purpose of a nation-state or any other attacks.”