Cybersecurity

Munich Security Conference: Cybersecurity takes centre stage

Cyber dangers were at the forefront of policymakers' minds as they attended this year's Munich Security Conference.

News that broke on the eve of the conference, which wrapped up on Sunday, set the tone. US and British officials revealed Russia was behind the NotPetya ransomware attack, with the FBI later indicting 13 Russians and identifying three Russian companies accused of meddling in the 2016 US election.

At the conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was forced to deny a Moscow plot. “Until we see the facts, everything else is just blather,” he said.

HR McMaster, the US National Security Adviser, responded that Russia was waging electronic warfare, to “support rightist groups, even the most extreme forms of fascist groups, and then groups on the left, in an attempt to pit western societies against each other”.