ii. Member States should be encouraged to reach an agreed common
definition of what constitutes “critical infrastructure”, with a view to
agreeing, as appropriate, on prohibiting any act that knowingly or
intentionally utilizes offensive ICT capabilities to damage or otherwise
impair the use and operation of critical infrastructure.
iii. Member States should be urged to consider the exchange of information
on ICTs-related vulnerabilities and/or harmful hidden functions in ICT
products and to notify users when significant vulnerabilities are identified.
c. Capacity Building: the principles of capacity building should include the
following:
i. The provision of assistance and cooperation should be demand-driven and
made upon request by the recipient State, taking into account its specific
needs and particularities.
ii. All efforts should be exerted to fully protect the confidentiality of information
related to the recipient State’s policies and measures to protect its national
infrastructures and the confidentiality of its ICT emergency response plans
in order to avoid any possibility of jeopardizing such information or
undermining the effectiveness of these measures and plans.
iii. The principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities should be applied
with regard to the provision of capacity building.
d. As for the “Regular Institutional Dialogue”, the pre-draft proposes that “the 76th
session of the General Assembly of the United Nations convene a new openended working group..”. We believe that waiting until the 76th session may
undermine the existing momentum and waste precious time. We prefer such
a decision to be adopted at the 75th session of the General Assembly.
e. On a final note, we discourage the repetition of establishing parallel processes
that have almost identical mandates. Such a course of action leads to
duplication of efforts and waste of scarce UN resources as well as
undermining the credibility and consistency of the UN efforts and the
Disarmament Machinery.
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