June 20, 2018 — Today, two months after announcing the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, eleven new companies have joined the watershed agreement to defend all customers everywhere from malicious attacks by cybercriminal enterprises and nation-states. The new signatories include Atlassian, Carbon Black, Cyber adAPT, ESET, Gigamon, GitLab, KoolSpan, KPN, MediaPRO, Salesforce, and WISeKey. These companies oversee important aspects of the world’s communications infrastructure including cloud-based customer relationship management, collaboration tools, telecommunications, endpoint security, datacenter security, and encryption.
”At Salesforce, Trust is our #1 value. Security and privacy are two sides of the same coin, and both are required to maintain trust in the technology industry,” said Amy Weaver, President, Legal and Corporate Affairs and General Counsel, Salesforce. “The Cybersecurity Tech Accord signatories are agreeing to real commitments of cooperation that will help member companies share information and practices that protect all of our customers.”
All Cybersecurity Tech Accord signatory companies make commitments in four areas:
Stronger defense
The companies will mount a stronger defense against cyberattacks. As part of this, recognizing that everyone deserves protection, the companies pledged to protect all customers globally regardless of the motivation for attacks online.
No offense
The companies will not help governments launch cyberattacks against innocent citizens and enterprises, and will protect against tampering or exploitation of their products and services through every stage of technology development, design and distribution.
Capacity building
The companies will do more to empower developers and the people and businesses that use their technology, helping them improve their capacity for protecting themselves. This may include joint work on new security practices and new features the companies can deploy in their individual products and services.
Collective action
The companies will build on existing relationships and together establish new formal and informal partnerships with industry, civil society and security researchers to improve technical collaboration, coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats and minimize the potential for malicious code to be introduced into cyberspace.
Since forming the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, signatory companies have held two formal meetings to begin their work and have been planning new ways to engage with civil society, industry and consumer groups to solve cybersecurity challenges and better protect people around the world.
“Protecting the cybersecurity and privacy of businesses and people is the defining challenge of our age, and the technologies that protect all of us must be protected,” said Elad Yoran, Executive Chairman, KoolSpan. “The Cybersecurity Tech Accord provides an important framework for leading companies to define principles that do so.”
“A company’s security program is only as strong as the weakest link in its chain–which in most cases is the employees, according to research,” said Tyler Winkler, Chief Executive Officer, MediaPRO. “From our perspective, training employees doesn’t need to be complicated, but it should create a culture of awareness that empowers people to protect themselves and their companies against threats.”
Announcements regarding future activities will take place in the coming months.