The US and Russia are locked in a dispute over how to counter the growing threat of cyberwar attacks that could wreak havoc on computer systems and the Internet.

Both nations agree that cyberspace is an emerging battleground. The two sides are expected to address the subject when US President Barack Obama visits Russia next week and at the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, according to a State Department official. But there the agreement ends.

Russia favours an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for chemical weapons and has pushed for that approach at a series of meetings this year. The US argues that a treaty is unnecessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work will also make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, American officials say.

“We really believe it’s defence, defence, defence,” said the US official. “They want to constrain offence. We needed to be able to criminalise these horrible 50,000 attacks we were getting a day.”

Any agreement on cyberspace presents special difficulties because the matter touches on issues like censorship of the Internet, sovereignty and rogue actors who might not be subject to a treaty.

US officials say the disagreement over approach has hindered international law enforcement cooperation, particularly given that a significant proportion of the attacks against American government targets are coming from China and Russia. And from the Russian perspective, the absence of a treaty is permitting a kind of arms race with potentially dangerous consequences.

... contd.