Strengthening UK–South Korea Cyber Security Cooperation

This research paper highlights the critical importance of the UK–Republic of Korea (UK–ROK) Strategic Cyber Partnership (SCP) in addressing shared cyber security challenges and advancing mutual interests, including in the Indo-Pacific. Authored by Pia Hüsch and Joseph Jarnecki, the paper examines the current state of bilateral cooperation, identifies strategic motivations, and provides actionable recommendations to strengthen the partnership.

Key findings include the need for increased joint activities, enhanced information-sharing practices and deeper collaboration on deterrence and proactive defence as well as emerging technologies such as AI. The paper also emphasises the importance of aligning cyber security standards and fostering academic, research and commercial exchanges to bolster the partnership.

Key Recommendations

• Expand joint activities: Increase the tempo of engagements across information sharing, policy alignment, academia, research and commercial partnerships.
• Develop responsible cyber defence doctrine: Facilitate bilateral exchanges on offensive cyber capabilities and doctrine.
• Enhance information-sharing practices: Improve cross-government collaboration and include private sector partners in threat intelligence-sharing formats.
• Strengthen academic and research links: Promote student and researcher exchanges, provide matched funding for joint research (including on themes like drivers of attribution, cybersecurity and AI, cyber collaboration between DPRK and Russia, and responsible offensive cyber doctrine), and exchange learnings from Korea University's cyber defence programme.
• Foster commercial opportunities: Create mechanisms to connect UK and South Korean companies, commission market studies and encourage industry participation in bilateral dialogues and conferences.
• Align cyber security and information sharing standards: Pursue mutual recognition of baseline consumer-technology requirements and explore a bilateral General Security Agreement (GSA).