The governments of 16 countries and the European Union have endorsed a set of principles designed to protect global undersea cable infrastructure from security threats and enhance its resilience to natural or man-made hazards.
The United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom were among the countries that introduced the principles at the 79th annual United National General Assembly, highlighting the reliance on undersea cables for global communication and the impact of connectivity disruption on commerce, digital growth and the global economy.
The endorsers encouraged incorporating cybersecurity best practices to build and maintain the submarine communications cable infrastructure and urged the strengthening of international cooperation to promote the selection of secure and verifiable subsea cable providers.
They also advocated for regular security risk assessments to detect the potential influence of a third country on suppliers and service providers, as well as the implementation of data risk mitigation frameworks and data security measures to prevent unauthorized access to data in transit or storage.
In a joint statement, the countries said they hope other nations will adopt the prciples “to better preserve the reliability, integrity, security and availability of infrastructure that supports the global community.”