A/68/98 played by private sector and civil society organizations. These norms and principles complement the work of the United Nations and regional groups and are the basis for further work to build confidence and trust. IV. Recommendations on confidence building measures and the exchange of information 26. Voluntary confidence-building measures can promote trust and assurance among States and help reduce the risk of conflict by increasing predictability and reducing misperception. They can make an important contribution to addressing the concerns of States over the use of ICTs by States and could be a significant step towards greater international security. States should consider the development of practical confidence-building measures to help increase transparency, predictability and cooperation, including: (a) The exchange of views and information on a voluntary basis on national strategies and policies, best practices, decision-making processes, relevant national organizations and measures to improve international cooperation. The extent of such information will be determined by the providing States. This information could be shared bilaterally, in regional groups or in other international forums; (b) The creation of bilateral, regional and multilateral consultative frameworks for confidence-building, which could entail workshops, seminars and exercises to refine national deliberations on how to prevent disruptive incidents arising from State use of ICTs and how these incidents might develop and be managed; (c) Enhanced sharing of information among States on ICT security incidents, involving the more effective use of existing channels or the development of appropriate new channels and mechanisms to receive, collect, analyse and share information related to ICT incidents, for timely response, recovery and mitigation actions. States should consider exchanging information on national points of contact, in order to expand and improve existing channels of communication for crisis management, and supporting the development of early warning mechanisms; (d) Exchanges of information and communication between national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) bilaterally, within CERT communities, and in other forums, to support dialogue at political and policy levels; (e) Increased cooperation to address incidents that could affect ICT or critical infrastructure that rely upon ICT-enabled industrial control systems. This could include guidelines and best practices among States against disruptions perpetrated by non-State actors; (f) Enhanced mechanisms for law enforcement cooperation to reduce incidents that could otherwise be misinterpreted as hostile State actions would improve international security. 27. These initial efforts at confidence-building can provide practical experience and usefully guide future work. States should encourage and build upon progress made bilaterally and multilaterally, including in regional groups such as the African Union, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the European Union, the League of Arab States, the Organization of American States, the OSCE, the Shanghai Cooperation 13-37166 9