From 17-21 May 2021, the George C. Marshall European Center’s Program on Cyber Security Studies (PCSS), in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, provided a first-of-its kind course for 50 policymakers worldwide on the policy and technical aspects of publicly attributing cyber incidents.

The United States and Germany are bolstering their efforts to promote the framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace and to cooperate with allies and partners to counter malign cyber activities.

This new course provided basic training on cyberspace attribution to partner nation policymakers to increase their understanding of public attribution as a policy tool and strengthen their capacity to respond cooperatively to shared threats.  As articulated in the course, states are using public attribution to call out bad behavior, inform the public, and warn network defenders about the need to take action to defend themselves against specific threat actors. 

Participants gained understanding of the policies and capabilities often employed in cyber attributions and cooperative response activities. This training program provided capacity-building assistance to help partner nations more effectively organize, engage in discussions, and take appropriate national action on public attribution when responding to significant cyber incidents.

The course supplied government experts with a knowledge sharing forum, access to global like-minded colleagues and the understanding of some of the key foundational concepts that underlie participation in cooperative responses to destructive, disruptive or otherwise destabilizing cyber incidents conducted by states.  These sorts of responses reinforce the framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace.