How NATO is updating its common defense pact to deal with global cyberattacks

President Joe Biden from Brussels called NATO's Article 5 a "sacred obligation" on Monday, the same day the organization updated how it will respond to cyberattacks.

President Joe Biden and leaders from the 30 countries that now make up NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, agreed at their summit in Brussels "that the impact of significant malicious cumulative cyber activities might, in certain circumstances, be considered as amounting to an armed attack," an assessment that could lead the organization to invoke its mutual self-defense clause -- or Article 5. Amid the growing cyber threat, Biden on Monday called NATO's Article 5 "a sacred obligation" that is "rock solid and unshakable." The NATO alliance and its pledge to the common defense of member nations was originally intended to deter armed aggression from the Soviet Union following World War II. The idea then was the allies could join forces to defend against an air or ground invasion.