Hackers could create a “breakdown of world order,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned in an interview with NBC Nightly News.

The U.S., China and Russia should unite via a cyber “Geneva Convention” to protect themselves against malevolent actors, Nadella said Tuesday, Business Insider reports.

“If this is about nation-states attacking each other, and especially civilian targets, then we are in a very new world order,” Nadella said. “It’s a breakdown of world order I think we have not seen before.”

The Geneva Conventions — consisting of four laws signed by 196 nations in 1949 under the guidance of the United Nations — prescribe how civilians and soldiers should be treated in war.

Microsoft, which has called for a cybersecurity Geneva Convention for many years, wrote in a 2017 policy paper: “The world needs new international rules to protect the public from nation-state threats in cyberspace. In short, the world needs a Digital Geneva Convention.”

Earlier this month, Microsoft revealed that the Russian hacking group Midnight Blizzard breached its email systems to access communications of top executives, successfully searching for a handful of missives about itself.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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