Microsoft now a Charter of Trust member to drive cybersecurity collaboration

Microsoft is a member of the Charter of Trust (CoT) cybersecurity initiative as of November 10. The company plans to contribute its cybersecurity expertise in developing and promoting awareness of robust security principles for a secure digital world.

Including Microsoft, the CoT initiative currently has 18 members.

“The Charter of Trust embodies the values we at Microsoft take seriously: being proactive, open, transparent and collaborative in developing cybersecurity best practices and enhancing trust,” said Tom Burt, corporate vice-president of customer security and trust at Microsoft, in a press statement. “Industry partnership is crucial to addressing the challenges we face today and we look forward to working with the Charter’s members to drive forward strategies and initiatives that strengthen cybersecurity.”

Over the last four years, the CoT has launched several measures to enhance cybersecurity. These include the “Security by Default” principle, which takes cybersecurity into account right from the design phase and provides products with preconfigured security measures. In addition, the CoT partners have defined baseline requirements for their suppliers in order to further enhance cybersecurity throughout supply chains. The primary focus in the next phase will be on implementing a cross-industry approach to evaluate supply-chain security. In this context, the growing CoT community will provide companies – mainly small and medium-sized businesses – with information, training and further resources.

“Cybersecurity is the key to building people’s confidence in digitalization,” said Cedrik Neike, member of the managing board of Siemens and CEO of Digital Industries. “By bringing Microsoft on board, the Charter of Trust is, again, gaining considerably more weight for making our connected world more resilient and for shaping our digital future.”

The CoT initiative collaborates regularly with various global authorities and scientific institutions to also drive advances in cybersecurity internationally and harmonize efforts across national borders and organizational boundaries. For this purpose, the CoT initiative has created the Associated Partner Forum which includes institutions such as the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity, the German Federal Office for Information Security, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) and the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering GmbH (HPI) in Germany.