Keyboards across the water

Two of the world's leading Internet security groups have signed a collaborative agreement to formalise their working partnership.

The CERT Co-ordination Center (CERT/CC) in the United States and the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) located at UQ have partnered to accelerate the development of methods, tools, and techniques to protect the interconnected networks comprising national and global information infrastructures.

This agreement expands a longstanding informal working relationship between the two groups, which have published joint security advisories and co-operated on special projects such as Y2K.

"It is an important step because the Internet does not recognise national borders and attacks may be directed at groups of countries or directed primarily at one country through others," CERT/CC manager Jeffrey Carpenter said.

"Approximately 40 percent of the incidents handled by the CERT/CC each year reach beyond American borders. Formal co-operative agreements such as this one make close liaisons possible with like-minded organisations in other countries, for exchanging information on how to protect against, detect, and respond to attacks."

The partnership will begin with a two-year pilot that will enable each organisation to gauge the benefit and feasibility of such a formal information-sharing and collaborative-development arrangement.

AusCERT is located at UQ and began operations in 1993. It acts as a co-ordinating centre for computer security incidents, a centre of expertise for the Asia-Pacific region, and a portal to contacts throughout the world for Australia. It publishes security information, conducts research, provides training and education, threat analysis and information and services to help organisations defend themselves more effectively.

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