International events: 1st Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit launched in Dallas

The 1st Worldwide Cybersecurity summit, hosted by EastWest Institute, featuring three days of discussions on ways to protect the world's digital infrastructure from electronic threats, will take place on May, 3 – 5 in Dallas (USA). Some 400 government officials, business leaders and cyber security experts from more than 30 countries are going to attend the meeting.

“We have an incredibly threatening environment out there right now, - US Homeland Security Deputy Undersecretary Philip Reitinger said at a dinner kicking off the first World Cybersecurity Summit in Dallas. - If we let our attention waver for a second we're going to be in a world of hurt”.

Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive of US computer giant “Dell”, agreed that the ability of cyber criminals and others to easily cover their tracks on the Web was a major problem and one that needs to be addressed.

"We have an enormous number of bad actors who are able to be completely anonymous," Mr Dell said. "Can you think of any secure system where people can operate anonymously? These are important questions for governments and societies to answer. But I think ultimately if you have a perpetuation of anonymous actors and an increasingly pervasive set of systems that are critical to infrastructure and commerce and everything else in the world this is a bad accommodation."

Without identifying specific countries, Dell added that "those nations that don't pursue these issues aggressively may find themselves as less desirable locations to do business or to do business with."

Mr Reitinger said that "an Internet ecosystem is fundamentally insecure”. It's important not to demonize the technology," he cautioned. "The vast majority of the people using the Internet are good people, it's just too hard to secure yourself and too hard to protect your family”.