Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Department of Homeland Defense (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson co-chaired the third U.S.-China High-Level Joint Dialogue on Cybercrime and Related Issues in Washington, DC on Wednesday with their Chinese counterparts.
The dialogue intends to review the timeliness and quality of responses to requests for information and assistance with respect to cybercrime and other malicious cyber activities while enhancing pragmatic bilateral cooperation on cybercrime, network protection, and related issues.
Lynch and Johnson co-chaired the meeting with Chinese State Councilor and Minister of the Ministry of Public Security Guo Shengkun.
The U.S. and China both endorsed the establishment of the Dialogue mechanism as beneficial to bilateral communications and strengthening cooperation. Both sides “believe that further solidifying, developing, and maintaining the Dialogue mechanism and continuing to strengthen bilateral cooperation in cybersecurity is beneficial to mutual interests,” DHS said in a statement.
This meeting follows two similar meetings held in the last two Decembers and chaired by the same high-level officials. It was originally planned through Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Obama’s joint commitments on cybersecurity (Defense Daily Sept. 25, 2015). That commitment stated neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property with the intent of providing competitive advantages of companies or commercial sectors. China has been repeatedly accused of conducting or participating in cyber attacks on U.S. companies to help domestic companies and commercial sectors.
The third Dialogue outcomes were announced in five categories: combatting cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime, network protection, misuse of technology and communication to facilitate violent terrorist activities, hotline mechanism, and dialogue continuity.
On cybercrime the U.S. and China re-committed to cooperating on the investigation of cyber crimes and malicious cyber activities originating in China or the U.S. and to refrain from cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property.
Specifically, the countries plan to continue the “Status Report on U.S./China Cybercrime Cases” mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of case cooperation; affirm both sides intend to focus cooperation on hacking and cyber-enabled fraud cases, share cybercrime-related leads and information with each other in a timely manner, and determine priority cases for continued law enforcement cooperation; seek to provide concrete and timely updates brought within the domain of the Dialogue; and exchange views on existing channels of multilateral cooperation while intending to continue exchanges there.
Both side also acknowledged a network protection seminar held in China in August 2016 and believe enhancing network protection is valuable to both sides. They suggested holding regular network protection working-level meetings remotely or in-person, and the next one should be planned for 2017. DHS also said both sides seek to promote the protection of their respective networks through multiple methods.
Considering those agreements, the U.S. and China plan to enhance network hygiene by promoting the cleaning and patching of malware infections in respective networks while promoting best network protection practices; propose to engage in regular reciprocal sharing of malicious IP addresses, malware samples, analytic products, and other network protection information; propose to develop standard operating procedures to guide network protection cooperation; seek to assess the effectiveness if shared information and provide feedback regarding the information’s utility; and plan to provide principals with regular summaries of network protection cooperation.
The countries also intend to continue discussion on future cooperation concerning cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and provide timely assistance on cybersecurity incidents that impact critical infrastructure; and also intend to hold a U.S.-China government and technology company roundtable as early as possible in 2017 to discuss cybersecurity issues of mutual concern.
The U.S. and China further acknowledged a seminar on misuse of technology and communications to facilitate violent acts of terrorism held in China in November. They decided to continue cooperation on information sharing to counter the use of the Internet for terrorists/criminal purposes. Both sides will consider holding a second seminar in 2017.
Concerning the hotline, the two countries “welcomed the launch of the U.S.-China Cybercrime and Related Issues Hotline Mechanism, and decided to continue to use the hotline in accordance with the Work Plan,” DHS said. They intend to conduct routine reviews of the use of the hotline.
The countries lastly recommended that the Dialogue continue to be held annually, with the fourth one to occur in 2017.