The two organizations signed a memorandum of understanding on May 4, 2010, at the first Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in Dallas. The MOU commits both organizations "to work together to better promote the safety, stability and security of cyberspace."

Under the agreement, the IEEE Communications Society will bring essential technical expertise in hardware, software and networks to the Worldwide Cybersecurity Initiative and help build the technical foundation for international cybersecurity measures. Meanwhile, EWI will bring its reputation as a global policy change agent and help build trust and mobilize resources to develop and implement such measures.

The partnership between EWI and the IEEE Communications Society is an innovative combination of technical and policy expertise. Such a partnership is critical to understand threats and vulnerabilities in cyberspace, devise solutions to address them and build international consensus to implement these solutions.

The two organizations have already started working together, producing groundbreaking reports such as The Reliability of Global Undersea Communications Cable Infrastructure. In creating this formal partnership, they will intensify their efforts to ensure cybersecurity and work together to meet their joint goal "to improve the world by making it safer and better for humanity."

Click here to download the full text of the EWI-IEEE memorandum of understanding (610K PDF).