Q4/2018 - Munich Security Conference (MSC)

Within the framework of this year’s Doha Forum on 15 December, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) featured a panel titled “Bit by Bit: Enforcing Norms in Cyberspace”. On the one hand the panellists agreed that a multilateral approach for negotiating norms in cyber space for state and non-state players was useful. On the other hand, they expressed doubts that such norms could be effective without pending questions of cyber forensics being solved, that is to say as long as cyber attacks could not be clearly assigned to a source. A double strategy was thus considered a recommendable solution for the current situation: It should comprise both negotiations for developing norms within the framework of the UNO as well as at regional level and building up national (military) capacities to ensure cyber security.