Cyber Diplomacy Is in High Demand - AFCEA Signal

2023-04-13 11:11 (EST) - Kimberly Underwood

The U.S. Department of State is formally executing a new role, that of cyber diplomacy. With the creation of the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy last April and the appointment in the fall of the associated ambassador, the department is globally elevating the dialogue about cybersecurity and the need for international norms and standards, digital infrastructure and emerging technologies. The new organization also has found great demand from allies and partners for cybersecurity assistance, said Nathaniel Fick, ambassador at large, Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, U.S. Department of State, speaking to reporters today at a Defense Writers Group event in Washington, D.C.

“A key piece of our remit is bolstering cyber capacity amongst our allies and partners all around the world,” Fick said. “Ive been all over the Indo-Pacific in my brief tenure already. Im going back next week. The same [is true] across the NATO alliance and everywhere else in the world, as the thing about the digital space, of course, is that its global. And in its scope, risk federates across connected systems. Cyber insecurity in a place that may geographically seem pretty remote, if that place is connected to other places that are more strategically central, the risk swims upstream. So, cyber capacity building of our allies and partners is one of our top-most missions.”

The ambassador cites Albania as an example. Iran attacked the country’s digital assets last summer after Albania had given refuge to members of Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an opposition group to the Iranian government.

“Albania is a NATO member,” Fick explained. “And for a long time, the United States has been advocating, around the world, for countries to digitize their government services in order to provide better services to citizens and to help cut corruption. ‘e-Albania’ was a pretty elegant response to that request so that Albanians could register to vote online and get drivers licenses and pay their taxes. And then the Iranians just thumped them.”

Fick, along with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, quickly went to Albania and met with the U.S. ambassador to Albania, Yuri Kim, and officials from the Albanian government, including their national cyber coordinator, Igli Tafa.

“The [visit] had a two-fold mission,” Fick stated. “The first was to remind the Iranian attackers that Albania is a member of NATO, and this is a problematic path that we dont want to go too far down.”

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