Government highlights "fundamental differences" within global community on internet governance

The UK government has downplayed hopes for international agreement around cyber attacks

The UK government has downplayed hopes of international agreement on widely accepted rules to prevent cyber attacks because of "fairly fundamental differences between the developed and the developing world around internet governance".

A House of Lords EU Committee report had initially suggested a rules-based approach to the issue, to which the government responded by saying that the report had suggested the creation of a treaty around policing which raised "some difficult issues", adding: "We feel the need to move cautiously."

The government said: "The UK is developing other approaches, in consultation with advanced nations, such as advocating 'norms of behaviour' rather than a rules-based approach.

"The government believes that this might hold out more prospect of behavioural change by states in the short to medium term."

A memorandum from the Home Office to the report argued the following: "Consideration needs to be given to the gradual development of international rules which will effectively discourage the launching of proxy attacks from within the jurisdiction of some of the main users of the internet."

The memorandum said that the government is putting significant resources into having strong and longstanding relations with the US and leading EU states on the issue of cyber security, with considerable work put into the Internet Governance Forum and continued support for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to promote the resilience and stability of the Domain Name System, with a role for the International Telecommunications Union.