US and China come to agreement on cyber-crime assistance guidelines

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By Larry Banks

The USA and China have come to an agreement on how to request assistance on cyber-crime and malicious cyber activities, according to the US Justice Department.

Talks were held in Washington earlier this week at which the agreement was reached, and included officials such as the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and the Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun.

According to the Justice Department, China and the US will run tabletop exercises this spring with scenarios designed to improve understanding of expectations for cooperation and response.

The bilateral talks had been planned to follow agreement between China and the USA in September, with the next round in June next year.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security said the new agreement would impact the implementation of Internet security measures, saying that both countries would have frank discussion on the issue.

However, the statement this week failed to mention a report from China’s Xinhua news agency about the hacking of personnel records in the US of current and past staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Xinhua said the hacks were in fact a criminal cyber-crime rather than being state sponsored as has been widely claimed.

SOURCE: Reuters.

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