Microsoft’s free thinkers have come up with a radical idea for containing global cyberattacks: set up a non-governmental organisation (NGO) whose job it would be to name perpetrators.
It sounds simple enough and, as the A-Team’s Hannibal used to say, “it’s so crazy it just might work.” Or is it just plain crazy?
Undoubtedly, Microsoft has been doing a lot of thinking on the matter, sponsoring a lengthy Rand Corporation report, Stateless Attribution – Toward international accountability in Cyberspace, that explores the issues that bedevil cyber-attribution.
This was quietly announced last week at the NATO Cycon conference in Tallinn by Paul Nicholas, head of Microsoft’s Global Security Strategy and Diplomacy Team.