Some larger members aren't too keen on helping out smaller countries

Jun 5, 2013 08:33 GMT  ·  By

The 28 NATO members that have met these days have agreed to boost the organization’s cyber defenses by October. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen says that all allies must be protected because a cyberattack on one of them can impact the entire organization.

However, according to Reuters, while smaller countries are keen to take advantage of NATO’s cyber defense capabilities, major members such as the UK, France, Germany and the US are not so willing to spend too much money on helping others.

They argue that they already spend large amounts of money on cybersecurity to protect themselves.

"NATO must not replace the will of individual members to defend themselves in cyber(space) as in other areas," one NATO diplomat said, cited by Reuters.

The solution, according to Rasmussen, is to use NATO’s rapid reaction teams to help attacked allies. Another solution is for one member to use its cyber capabilities to help allies in need.

In any case, the main priority is to make sure NATO's own computer networks are properly protected, since they're the ones utilized to coordinate military operations.