The Obama administration has proposed the creation of international computer security standards.
At present, the internet is neither covered by international law nor by international treaties.
The new proposal by the US, in a report titled International Strategy for Cyberspace, calls for penalties for countries and organisations that breach security standards.
The US describes the expansion of the Internet as "arbitrary and malicious disruption".
The report cites growing threats by individual hackers, companies and hostile states, and ha suggestions on how to tackle these.
In recent years, the US has been a target of hackers. Government and private systems are attacked millions of times per day, say US officials. Recently, the US government was angered by the Wikileaks scandal.
This is the first such proposal from the US. It calls for a secure and free environment in the online world, however it does not mention Wikileaks anywhere.
The proposal calls for officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the Commerce Department and the Department of Homeland Security to work with officials in other countries and develop standards that prevent theft of private information and protect Internet freedom.
The report says: "The US will work internationally to promote an open, inter-operable, secure, and reliable information and communications infrastructure that supports international trade and commerce, strengthens international security, and fosters free expression and innovation."
The report also says, "The world must collectively recognise the challenges posed by malevolent actors’ entry into cyberspace, and update and strengthen our national and international policies accordingly. Activities undertaken in cyberspace have consequences for our lives in physical space, and we must work towards building the rule of law, to prevent the risks of logging on from outweighing its benefits."
The US has said that any cyber attack will be treated as an attack on its country and that a cyber attack on one Nato country will be regarded as an attack on all.
"All states possess an inherent right to self-defence, and we recognise that certain hostile acts conducted through cyberspace could compel actions under the commitments we have with our military treaty partners," the report says.
