06 May 2018

Nine major companies have signed what they say is the first joint charter for greater cyber security.

Dubbed the “Charter of Trust”, the agreement calls for binding rules and standards to build trust in cyber security and further advance digitalisation.

Initiated by Siemens, the charter was signed at the Munich Security Conference held earlier this year. Other signatories include Airbus, Allianz, Daimler Group, IBM, NXP, SGS and Deutsche Telekom. 

The charter outlines 10 cyber security action areas where the public and private sectors must both become active. It calls for responsibility to be assumed at the highest levels of government and business, with the introduction of a dedicated ministry in governments and a CISO at companies.

It also calls for businesses to establish mandatory, independent third-party certification for critical infrastructure and solutions. The partners said this is particularly crucial where “dangerous” situations can arise, such as with autonomous vehicles or robots,which will interact directly with humans during production processes. 

The charter also states that in the future, data protection functions should be preconfigured as a part of technologies, and cyber security regulations should be incorporated into free trade agreements.

Furthermore, the signatories said greater efforts should be made to foster an understanding of cyber security through training and continuing education as well as international initiatives.