Ikram Sehgal, a member of EWI's Board of Directors, sums up the first Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in his weekly column in the Pakistani daily, The News.

"Nations have established rules of the game on land, sea, air and outer space, there are no such rules in the fifth common domain, cyberspace," he writes, echoing a common theme throughout the summit. Laying out some cyber vulnerabilities identified during the two-day gathering, he adds: "Even a 'cyber layman' like myself in the realm of cybersecurity could sense the acute anxiety among the 450 or so dignitaries and experts at the Summit."

"A star-studded panel comprising Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Udo Helmbrecht Executive Director European Network and Information Agency (ENISA), Philip Reitinger of the Department of Homeland Security and Teri Takai, Technology Advisor to the Governor of California, concluded that while not working well on the tactical level worldwide cybersecurity cooperation was practically non-existent at the strategic level," he writes, referring to the the cybersecurity awareness dinner on May 3 that kicked off the summit.

Sehgal highlights several challenges in creating cybersecurity policy that participants identified at the summit, especially the delicate balance between security and privacy. "Breakthrough solutions will require the effective integration of technical, business, legal, defense and international policy competencies on a level that has not happened so far," he writes, adding: "Nations are thinking too parochially about their online security to collaborate on crafting global cyber regulations."

He concludes with a call to his native Pakistan to engage in the process.

"With experts in the US, China, indeed from all over the world, feeling so concerned about vulnerability of the State and its citizens, what are we in Pakistan doing to forestall such a potentially devastating threat?"  he asks.

Click here to read Sehgal's article in The News.