Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) Director of Cyber Security Dr. Khalid Bin Duaij Al Khalifa headed Bahrain’s delegation to the US-GCC Cyber Security Strategic Cooperation Forum at the Secretariat- General Headquarters in Riyadh, which took place on the 31st of August to the 1st of September,2015.
The Cyber Working Group, which is made up of US and GCC Delegations from multiple agencies that have a role in Cyber Security, was established after the May 14th Camp David Summit with GCC leaders, where the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council Countries agreed to several lines of effort related to improving cyber security in the GCC.
The forum provided a platform to discuss and assess GCC countries’ cyber security readiness and to explore possible areas of cooperation in developing policies and plans to protect critical infrastructure against cyber threats, to promote information sharing on cyber issues and to provide cyber security assistance. The forum also facilitated government wide discussions on cyber issues, and the multilateral consultations for regional cooperation against cyber threats.
After the working group’s meetings were concluded, Dr. Khalid Bin Duaij Al Khalifa said in a statement that “Cyber Security is a matter that requires international cooperation and knowledge sharing. It is a high priority for the Kingdom of Bahrain from a security and economic standpoint, thus adopting the standards observed by the US and GCC is key to bolstering the nation’s critical infrastructure industries. The working group is an important step towards maximizing efforts multilaterally across the GCC in defending against cyber threats effectively and cooperatively”
Dr. Khalid went on to say that “We have all witnessed the damage that cyber vulnerabilities can cause, such as national scale economic convulsions, the disruption of tactical military operations, and system wide computer malfunction as we witnessed in Aramco . These are all complex threats that can’t be dealt with in isolation, which is why at this intersection of policy & technology, we seek to strengthen our cooperative mechanisms, as we simply cannot afford to have our key national infrastructures & systems to be exposed or to become fragile.”
The agenda for the Cyber Working Group included topics such as the basics and importance of national cyber strategy, approaches to critical infrastructure security and resilience related to cyber security, cyber incident management, cyber threat information sharing and law enforcement cooperation, and exchange of cyber security best practices.
Source: TRA Bahrain