US and UK to test resilience with joint cyber wargames

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have sanctioned conducting a rolling programme of transatlantic cyber wargames, as part of efforts to test their flexibility in the face of escalating cyber-attack globally.

Both nations have also agreed for the establishment of a joint ‘cyber cell’ in a bid to foresee and share intelligence on malicious hacking activities.

White House issued a statement that read: "Our initial joint exercise will focus on the financial sector, with a program running over the coming year.

"Further, we will work with industry to promote and align our cybersecurity best practices and standards, to include the U.S. Cybersecurity Framework and the United Kingdom’s Cyber Essentials scheme."

As part of the programme, both nations will carry out the first wargame against the financial sector, together with the Bank of England and other financial institutions, which will be coordinated by the ‘cyber-cell’.

Agents from the UK’s GCHQ and MI5 and their US counterparts National Security Agency and the FBI are already working in the US unit of the cell, in a bid to match by the UK’s a cyber-cell in the UK.

Both nations have also agreed to fund a new Fulbright Cyber Security Award, which will enable some of the brilliant scholars from both sides to conduct cybersecurity research for about six months.

Further, Cameron will push Obama to pressurise the internet majors, including Facebook and Twitter, to bolster cooperation with the intelligence agencies as they try to supervise the communications of terror suspects.