Homeland Security partnering with CERT for cyberfighting
Homeland Security partnering with CERT for cyberfighting
To prevent, monitor and respond to "cyberattacks" across the Internet...for a fee ?
09-15-2003 4:57:50 PM CST -- By John Borland CNET News.com
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is teaming up with the Net's top virus-tracking facility to create an organization to fight cyberbugs. The federal body said Monday it was partnering with Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center to create a new group that would work to prevent, monitor and respond to "cyberattacks" across the Internet. The new US-CERT group is expected to focus on giving companies, digital security groups, federal agencies and others a venue for sharing critical information about security issues. "The recent cyberattacks--such as the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus--highlight the urgent need for an enhanced computer emergency response program that coordinates national efforts to cyberincidents and attacks," DHS Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement. The new organization hopes to jump-start communication between companies, security researchers, networks and other entities affected by digital security problems, many of which have historically been loath to share detailed information on break-ins by hackers, software vulnerabilities or other security problems.
A forum that allows those entities talk directly to each other, as opposed to sharing bits of information through a central *************, has been slow to emerge--despite being long-viewed by security experts as one of the most critical needs of a computing community racing to keep up with virus-writers and mutating computer worms. "Today most of the interaction between organizations is informal, happening on an ad-hoc basis," Jeffrey Carpenter, manager of the Carnegie Mellon CERT center, said. "But I think organizations are coming to realize that they have to work together on this problem. We're much more powerful together than individually." Monday's announcement served primarily as notice to the security community that the new US-CERT would be soliciting participation from critical network-watchers and vulnerability-trackers, ranging from government organizations to Internet service providers. Carpenter said the new organization will likely spend the next few months signing up those partners, both in the United States and overseas, that can best provide insight into the current state of network vulnerabilities....continued...
Click here to read the full story at ZDNet
replacing CERT with U.S. CERT ????
Feds set up cyberfighting group
Government unveils computer emergency response team
A blessing or more political rhetoric?
Is this a knee-jerk reaction to cloud the issue that the U.S. Government has been ineffective at educating, training and persuading not only the computer industry in general, but their own employees on the need to employ proper security personnel and policies ??
