The White House released a fact sheet on Jan. 19 outlining the deepening U.S.-Australia strategic partnership, including cyber issues, following Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian Prime Minister’s, visit to Washington, D.C.
“We share a commitment to cyber security and an open Internet—a transformative technology that has led to greater connectivity, efficiency, and access to markets—and together we are continuing to seek an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable Internet that also protects the privacy of our citizens,” the White House said.
The United States and Australia committed to several actions to achieve these goals including working together to enhance efforts to respond to cyber incidents, starting with mapping their respective cyber incident response architecture, with the aim to exercising incident response measures in the future.
They also committed to support a new Track 1.5 U.S.-Australia Cyber Security Dialogue; enhancing cybercrime cooperation, including increased exchanges between law enforcement and cybercrime experts plus more collaboration in cybercrime investigations; continuing close cooperation to promote voluntary peacetime norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace; and enhancing the coordination of the countries’ cyber capacity building efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Turnbull highlighted the cooperative effort to promote peacetime norms of cyber behavior.
“Australia, the United States and others will work together internationally to promote norms of behavior that are consistent with a free, open and secure internet. They include that states should not knowingly conduct or support cyber-enabled intellectual property theft for commercial advantage,” Turnbull said before the White House meeting at a Jan. 18 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Turnbull noted the norms of behavior approach can provide a basis for both putting pressure on adversaries and imposing costs on malicious actors.
The fact sheet also mentioned the countries’ strong bilateral defense and security cooperation under their alliance. It noted in October, at the 30th annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) consultations, the countries reaffirmed the alliance, reiterated a commitment to fully implement the U.S. Force Posture Initiatives in Australia, and signed a Joint Statement on Defense Cooperation.
The White House also applauded the Australian government’s commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense as “a tangible commitment to contribute to regional and international security.”