U.S.-India Cyber Security Forum: Enhanced Cooperation to Safeguard Shared Information Infrastructures

The U.S. and Indian Governments are intensifying on-going cooperation to address national security issues arising from the increasing interdependency of our critical network information systems involved in outsourced business processing, knowledge management, software development and enhanced inter-government interaction. Enhancing the cyber security of shared information systems was made a priority by President Bush during a November 2001 Summit in Washington with former Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee.

Work began in earnest in April 2002 with the establishment of the U.S.-Indian Cyber Security Forum, a group mandated to cooperate on policy, procedural, and technical issues of cyber security interest to both nations. The most recent plenary meeting of the bilateral group was January 16-17, 2006 in New Delhi, co-chaired on the U.S side by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs Michael Coulter, and on the Indian side by Arvind Gupta, Joint Security of the National Security Council Secretariat. Apex industry associations (CII, NASSCOM and ITAA) from both nations are key participants in these discussions.

Since 2002, five working groups have been established within the framework of the Cyber Security Forum to address specific issues:

       Legal Cooperation and Law Enforcement (co-chaired by the US Department of Justice and the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs.)
       Research and Development (co-chaired by the Department of State and the Defense Research and Development Organization within the Ministry of Defense).
       Critical Information Infrastructure, Watch and Warning and Emergency Response. (co-chaired by the US Department of Homeland Security and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) within the Department of Information Technology);
       Defense Cooperation (co-chaired by the US Department of Defense and the Indian Ministry of Defense)
       Standards and Software Assurance (co-chaired by the Department of Commerce and the Indian STQC (Standardization, Testing, Quality and Certification) within the Department of Information Technology).

Two other working groups are being considered for establishment:

 Transportation Security
 Financial Transaction Security

Both governments are committed to enhancing this cooperation by creating a new Joint Indo-U.S. Cybersecurity Initiative that will focus on capacity building through exchanges of experts, training, sharing information, and strengthening public-private partnerships.

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