Cyber Warfare Is Still a Free-for-All

SAN FRANCISCO—Between cyberattacks against power grids and election influence campaigns, nations are increasingly waging war through the internet with the rest of us stuck in the middle. At RSA, experts pondered what, if anything, can be done to make everyone play nice.

RSA bug artThe main concern for panelists was how to enforce norms and agreements between countries about what they can and cannot do online. One method is to form a coalition of countries to unanimously and publicly condemn the actions of another country. This is especially true with the use of sanctions.

"Our sanctions policy is that much stronger when other countries join us in those sanctions," said Rob Strayer, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy at the US State Department.