Thirty-four tech giants sign cyber security charter

Microsoft teams up with firms like Facebook and HP to sign new cyber security charter.

Some of the world's biggest technology companies have signed a joint security charter to defend their products and customers from cyber attacks.

On Tuesday, to coincide with the launch of the 2018 RSA Conference in San Francisco, California Microsoft joined firms such as Symantec, Facebook, SAP, HP, Nokia and Oracle in putting the final touches to the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.

Backed by 34 companies in total, the collaborative agreement is aimed at stopping cyber criminals and nation states from preying on customers and connected technologies.

Microsoft said the agreement represents the "operators of technologies that power the world's internet communication and information infrastructure".

The main aim of the charter is to develope stronger defence strategies that can fend off cyber attacks and ensure that consumers are always protected.

Through the joint effort, Microsoft explained that the companies will work together to "oppose efforts to misuse, tamper with or exploit" their products and services.

These companies will "increase cybersecurity capacity in every sector and region" while encouraging developers, businesses and consumers to "better protect themselves", said the firm.

Finally, the tech firm called this a "collective action", meaning that companies will form partnerships with "industry civil society and security researchers to improve technical collaboration".

At the same time, they will "coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats and minimise malicious code being introduced into cyberspace".

Despite the fact that the charter has been published, Microsoft confirmed that it will remain open to "new private sector signatories, large or small and regardless of sector".

Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of Microsoft, said the company has teamed up with its competitors to create "old new measures to defend and protect technology users around the world".

He explained: "We recognised that supporting an open, free and secure internet is not just the responsibility of individual companies, like ourselves, but a responsibility that must be shared across the entire tech sector and with governments.

"We called on the world to borrow a page from history in the form of a Digital Geneva Convention, a long-term goal of updating international law to protect people in times of peace from malicious cyberattacks

"But as we also said at RSA last year, the first step in creating a safer internet must come from our own industry, the enterprises that create and operate the world's online technologies and infrastructure."