Argentina, Brazil Agree on Cyber-Defense Alliance against US Espionage


Argentina, Brazil Agree on Cyber-Defense Alliance against US Espionage

TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Defense ministers of Brazil and Argentina pledged to cooperate closely to improve cyber defense capabilities following revelations of the scale of US spying on Latin American countries.

“We need to reflect on how we cooperate to face these new forms of attack,” Brazil's defense minister, Celso Amorim, said at a conference in Buenos Aires.

“We have established that we will hold a meeting in Brasilia before the end of the year to intensify our complementarity in the matter of cyber defense,” Argentine defense minister Agustin Rossi said after talks with his Brazilian counterpart.

The ministers signed a broader military cooperation agreement on Friday, RT reported.

The countries have agreed that later this year, Brazil will host a bilateral cyber security meeting. And starting in 2014 Brazil will provide cyber warfare training to Argentine officers.

The combined efforts will allow Brazil and Argentina to “diminish situations of vulnerability,” Rossi said.

Amorim noted the countries’ software industries have “great capacity” that could support any initiatives in the cyber defense area.

The scandal that prompted the countries to boost their cyber security broke after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA’s spy program encompasses most countries in Latin America.

Early September, Brazil’s TV Globo reported that the NSA intercepted telephone calls and e-mails of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican leader Enrique Pena Nieto. A week later is was revealed that the US government also retrieved key data on a number of issues including the oil market, drugs trade and political movements in the Latin American countries .

 

 

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