Last week at the Australian Open, I was taken on a tour of the IBM computers running the tournament. One of the displays showed a stream of threats to the IBM system in Melbourne, Australia. The attacks were coming from all over the world, mostly from Russia and China. It was only a simulation. As the IBM manager told me, a real threat would happen to fast to follow.

It was a seriously scary revelation and coincides with a new study from McAfee, reported here, suggesting that cyber attacks are on the rise. Essential services like energy, telecommunications and finance, including banks, will be on the front line of these attacks. It will be worse than a tsunami or earthquake. All this has been recently highlighted by Google recent threat to quit China over cyber attacks and censorship.

So it's not surprising that International Telecommunication Union (ITU) secretary-general Hamadoun Toure is now calling for a global treaty where countries engage not to make the first cyber strike against other nations and not harbor cyber terrorists. The ITU is the main UN communications and technology agency.

How effective would a treaty be? It might be a start but can it stop cyber attacks launched from third parties, operating on the fringes? Hardly.

Still, if nothing else this call suggests we will see governments taking more of a role in cyber security. Another reason why governments will get bigger.