At a recent cybersecurity conference in Scotland, Intelligence experts from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that includes the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK, said that naming and shaming the nation states behind destructive cyberattacks is an important strategy for creating international norms and forging coalitions of opposition against the attackers.
Rob Joyce of the US National Security Agency (NSA) said that “[i]f you look at the countries that have blatantly come out and attacked other countries in cyberspace, countries who are stealing wealth to avoid sanctions, literally bank-robbing in the cyber realm, it’s a small group – you can name them on one hand” – a clear reference to the most notorious nation state actors in cyberspace, namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Joyce stated that the Five Eyes members have “got to get comfortable as nations going out and saying these countries are behaving in a way that’s unacceptable and turning up that pressure.”
Read more: Naming and shaming nations that launch cyberattacks does work, say intel chiefs