Microsoft joins Charter of Trust for cyber security collaboration

Author: Beatrice

Microsoft has joined the Charter of Trust (CoT) cyber security initiative as of 10 November 2022. As a CoT member, Microsoft plans to contribute its cyber security expertise in developing and promoting awareness of robust security principles for a secure digital world. With the addition of Microsoft, the Charter of Trust initiative has grown to 18 members. Siemens and eight partners from the industrial sector founded this initiative in 2018 to drive advances in cyber security across industries and at a global level.

“The Charter of Trust embodies the values we at Microsoft take seriously: being proactive, open, transparent, and collaborative in developing cyber security best practices and enhancing trust,” says Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft. “Industry partnership is crucial to addressing the challenges we face today, and we look forward to working with members to drive forward strategies and initiatives that strengthen cyber security.”

“Cyber security is the key to building people’s confidence in digitalisation,” says Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. “By bringing Microsoft on board, the Charter of Trust is, again, gaining considerably more weight for making our connected world more resilient and for shaping our digital future.” 

Over the last four years, the Charter of Trust has already launched a wealth of measures to enhance cyber security – including the ‘Security by Default’ principle, which takes cyber security into account right from the design phase, and provides products with preconfigured security measures. In addition, the CoT partners have defined baseline requirements for their suppliers in order to further enhance cyber security throughout supply chains. The primary focus in the next phase will be on implementing a cross-industry approach to evaluate supply chain security. In this context, the growing Charter of Trust community will provide companies – mainly small and medium-sized businesses – with information, training and further resources.

The CoT initiative collaborates regularly with various global authorities and scientific institutions to also drive advances in cyber security internationally and harmonise efforts across national borders and organisational boundaries. For this purpose, the CoT initiative has created the Associated Partner Forum, which has been joined by institutions such as the German Federal Office for Information Security, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC), the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering GmbH (HPI) in Germany.

At the Munich Security Conference in February 2018, Siemens and eight partners from the industrial sector signed the world’s first joint charter for greater cyber security. In addition to Siemens and the Munich Security Conference, the signatories include AES, Airbus, Allianz, Atos, Bosch, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Post DHL Group, IBM, Infineon Technologies AG, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NTT, NXP Semiconductors, SGS, TotalEnergies, TÜV SÜD – and now Microsoft.