A group of 34 technology companies today announced that its members have signed a “watershed” agreement meant to serve as a shared commitment to combating cyberattacks, particularly the state-sponsored kind.

The newly unveiled Cybersecurity Tech Accord is backed by Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and a long list of other prominent industry players. The group also includes a number of comparatively smaller firms, mainly from the cybersecurity industry.

The New York Times credited Microsoft President Brad Smith (pictured) as the main driving force behind the agreement. Smith has long advocated for a “Digital Geneva convention” to establish ground rules on what can and cannot be done in cyberspace. The new accord follows a similar formula, laying out a set of commitments that the signatory companies have pledged to fulfill in order to make the internet safer.

“In a world where everything is connected, anything can be disrupted,” Smith said today in his keynote at the security-focused RSA Conference in San Francisco. That’s why a broader consensus on security approaches is crucial, he said.

The agreement consists of four fairly brief sections that the group posted on a dedicated website set up for the initiative. What has drawn the most attention is the first part, which details that Microsoft and the other signatories will seek to avoid working with governments on offensive cybersecurity initiatives.

“We will not help governments launch cyberattacks against innocent citizens and enterprises from anywhere,” the accord reads.” The same section contains a pledge to “protect against tampering with and exploitation of technology products and services during their development, design, distribution and use.”

The latter point is particularly significant given recent legislative efforts aimed at forcing tech companies such as Apple Inc. to implement backdoors in their products. The iPhone maker is notably absent from the initial list of signatories to the accord, as are Google LLC and Amazon.com Inc. But they may very well come aboard at a later date given the wide support that the agreement has received so far.

The group behind the accord stated in a press release that it will be open to adding additional backers “large or small and regardless of sector.” The companies also believe that the collaboration could potentially be expanded over time to cover additional activities, such as establishing partnerships to combat specific online threats.

The extent to which those partnerships will include governmental agencies remains up in the air. In an interview at the RSA Conference today with CNBC, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was asked if the Trump administration would support a digital Geneva Convention. She skirted a direct answer, but did emphasize the need for widespread cooperation.

“You can no longer protect yourself in a vacuum,” she said in her keynote. “Everyone has a role in making cyberspace more secure. If we prepare individually, we will all fail collectively.”

She also vowed, in reference to Russian efforts to interfere with the U.S. presidential election two years ago, “We cannot let it happen again,” and said actions to punish such behavior may be necessary.

Many tech firms already actively collaborate on initiatives meant to make the web more secure. One such alliance helped produce WebAuthn, a standard that aims to reduce the need for passwords in the interest of mitigating the risk from hacking tactics such as phishing, which exploit stolen login credentials. The technology began rolling out to browsers last week following two years of work by engineers from Google, Apple, Microsoft and others.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE