Tackling Cybercrime Most Pressing Issue of Our Time

Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi said Thursday that the world must step up its efforts to tackle increasing cybercrimes.

Martonyi made the point on the sidelines of the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013 which started Thursday at COEX in southern Seoul. He was in charge of last year’s event in Budapest.

“In my view, the greatest challenges ahead of us are that cyberspace is emerging as a new dimension of conflicts of the future and that there is an exponential rise in criminality in cyberspace fueled, somewhat ironically, by the very same advances in digital technology,” he said in an interview.

“Accordingly, tackling cybercrime is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time and it requires concerted national, regional and international cooperation involving all relevant or affected stakeholders.”

However, the world created by the Internet and information technology is not all doom and gloom ― Martonyi said that it also offers big opportunities of economic growth in terms of improved productivity, taking Korea as an example.

“Cyberspace offers plentiful opportunities and a clear consensus has emerged that it is a crucial contributor to economic growth and a key driver of gains in productivity globally,” he said.

“The remarkable story of the economic boom of South Korea is a good example for the extremely close relationship...