Biden urges cooperation on cybersecurity

Vice President Joe Biden has told the United States’ European allies that NATO should focus on cybersecurity.

In his first major foreign policy speech since becoming vice president, Biden pledged cooperation with those allies on a wide range of issues and laid out areas where NATO should focus its attention.

“Our alliance [NATO] must be better equipped to help stop the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons, to tackle terrorism and cybersecurity, to expand the writ of energy security, and to act in and out of area more effectively,” he said Feb. 7 in a speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, according to a transcript.

NATO officials announced in May they were launching a center focused on cooperative cyber defense in Tallinn, Estonia.

Over the past few years, institutions in Estonia and Georgia were the targets of high-profile denial-of-service cyberattacks during periods of political tension with Russia. Russia's government denied involvement in those attacks.