India, United States kick off cyber drills

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team kicked off a two-day joint offensive computer exercise with the United States on Wednesday, according to an Indian media report.

The two agencies will launch phishing, network-probing, spam and malware attacks against each other and work out possible security ventures going forward, according to the article. The collaboration was first floated in the talks between Home Secretary R. K. Singh and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Lute in April.

The joint-exercise reflects a larger push by the Pentagon to collaborate with international allies to secure the digital domain. Defense has reached what officials describe a key agreement with some allies to share information to bolster computer security, Foreign Policy reported this week. The agreement allows the Pentagon to quickly share broad amounts of information on attacks with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.