Microsoft President Brad Smith has pressed the world's governments to form an international body to protect against nation-state hacking, saying recent high-profile attacks show a need for global norms that police government activity in cyberspace.
Smith's call for a "Digital Geneva Convention" follows a 2016 US presidential election marred by the hacking and disclosure of Democratic Party emails that US intelligence agencies concluded were carried out by Russia in order to help Republican Donald Trump win.
"Just as the world's governments came together in 1949 to adopt the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect civilians in times of war, we need a Digital Geneva Convention that will commit governments to implement the norms needed to protect civilians on the internet in times of peace," Smith said in a draft of a blog post seen by Reuters.
Smith was expected to discuss his proposal during keynote remarks on Tuesday at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.
Cyber attacks have increasingly been used in recent years by governments to achieve foreign policy or national security objectives, sometimes in direct support of traditional battlefield operations. Despite a rise in attacks on governments, infrastructure and political institutions, few international agreements currently exist governing acceptable use of nation-state cyber attacks.
