U.S. And India To Join Forces Against Cybercrime

Last week, representatives from both the United States and India met to discuss how the two nations could work together to fight back against the growing community of cyber criminals.

The meeting, called the U.S.-India Cyber Security Dialogue, gave both sides a chance to present their views on the current landscape of cyber threats, as well as provide their input as to how to move forward and boost cybersecurity for both nations.

Collaboration Key

Both Indian and American delegates agreed that public and private cooperation was essential to protecting against further attacks. President Obama has championed the idea of collaboration between the public and the private sector, and making good on those promises, he included executives from companies like Oracle Corporation ORCL, International Business Machines Corp. IBM, Google Inc GOOG GOOGL, Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Symantec Corporation SYMC in the talks.

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Trust Wavers

While the meeting's participants agreed that collaboration was key in the fight against cybercrime, many private companies appear reluctant to share data with the government. Just this weekend, AT&T Inc. T was accused of providing the NSA with billions of emails and cellphone records back in 2011 when the agency had obtained secret permission for surveillance.

Now, customers are questioning what kind of relationship the provider has had with the government since 2013, when Edward Snowden made the surveillance practices public. Concerns about privacy have led many consumers to become skeptical and the new accusations could hurt AT&T's reputation.

Cybersecurity Standards

Moving forward, the two nations are expected to begin working on a set of international standards for cybersecurity in order to protect the digital market. Since the Internet has made digital markets borderless, many believe that international standards are necessary to protect the flow of data and reduce the risk of breaches.