Now, the Charter of Trust welcomes two government authorities to its ranks as associate members for the very first time: the BSI German Federal Office for Information Security, which is one of the most relevant institutions for cybersecurity experts and the CCN National Cryptologic Center of Spain. CCN is an agency of the Spanish State annexed to the National Intelligence Center. In addition, the Graz University of Technology in Austria will be joining the charter as an associate member. The team there focuses on cyber security research and for instance was one of the teams that discovered the IT vulnerabilities “Meltdown” and “Spectre”. The associate partner is a new format, through which the Charter opens up for important government representatives, universities and think tanks for cooperation. A benefit to such organisations is that they can cooperate on specific projects without having to become full members with all rights and duties.

“In the age of the internet of things, the cyber security is a crucial task. Our Charter of Trust initiative is a very important first step,” said Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens. “We’re open to many more partners. Cyber security is the key enabler for successful digital businesses as well as protecting critical infrastructure. We hope that this initiative will lead to a lively public awareness and, ultimately, to binding rules and standards.”

The Charter of Trust has set ambitious goals for 2019. Besides deepening and expanding the policy dialogue, members plan to advance two topics: “Cyber security by Default” and “Education” – meaning predictive cyber security settings embedded in products and other environments, and global continuing training efforts both inside and outside companies.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, threats to cyber security in 2018 caused 500 billion euros in losses worldwide. And threats to cyber security are constantly on the rise as the world digitalises further: according to Gartner, 8.4 billion networked devices were in use in 2017 – 31 percent more than in 2016. The figure is expected to rise to 20.4 billion by 2020.