India is best partner to combat shared cyber threats: US

New Delhi: The US wants India to be its "best partner" to combat "shared" cyber crime threats in specific sectors of finance, infrastructure and energy, a top American official said on Tuesday.

United States of America's Coordinator for Cyber Issues Christopher Painter, who is in India for meetings with his counterparts in the cyber security domain, said both the countries will soon sit down for the delegation-level 'cyber dialogue', a meeting which has not taken place for last few years.

"India is a very important partner for us. It is our best partner. We have a shared responsibility and challenge to work together. We share same core values and to realise the potential of our common goals in this domain, we will have to work together," Painter said.

He said both countries have had discussions to prepare combat mechanisms to counter cyber attacks in various important sectors that drive a country's economy. "We are worried about cyber attacks on various sectors like infrastucture and energy, among others. Hence, it is important for both the US and India to collaborate," he said.

He said "points of contact" in this regard have been exchanged between the two sides duing their earlier meetings and cyber security cooperation was also discussed between India and the US during President Barack Obama's recent visit to the country. Painter also talked about the recent incident of "destructive attack on Sony Pictures in the US by North Korea" and Obama's concern over such attempts allegedly made from China to violate Intellectual Property (IP) protocols and breach of trade secrets for commercial purposes.

"We want to collaborate with every country in the world against cyber threats and against all kinds of criminals, criminal groups and trans-national criminals," he said. He said Obama has recently ordered a "review of national practices" in the context of snooping and hacking of entities beyond the US borders.

"President Obama has strongly said that we should not do something because we can do something but only to protect our citizens and those of the world, with a lot of oversight and transparency," he said.