Infrastructures and Security News Promoting Cybersecurity Promoting Cybersecurity
- 15/05/2006The United Nations set 17th May as World Information Society Day and decided that the 2006 day would be dedicated to Promoting Cybersecurity. The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation (site in Portuguese) answered the United Nations’ call by organising the Promoting Cybersecurity meeting on 17th May 2006 from 3 pm to 5 pm at the FCCN, on the LNEC – National Civil Engineering Laboratory campus. The opening session will be chaired by the Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education.
Central Government bodies will be taking part in this meeting, along with researchers, university teaching staff and companies such as Microsoft Portugal, PT.COM/SAPO, Sun Microsystems Portugal and UNISYS Portugal. Among the topics for discussion will be the creation and operation of Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CERTs) with reference to the FCCN’s CERT.PT, security incident response cooperation and dealing with citizens, fighting SPAM, new challenges for cybersecurity and the security of critical infrastructures.
The FCCN’s CERT. is currently the only Computer Security Incident Response Team accredited by the CERT Coordination Centre - Computer Emergency Response Teams of Carnegie Mellon University, USA. This team operates in the scope of the RCTS – Science, Technology and Society Network, which provides computer connections for scientific and higher education institutions and primary and secondary schools, and has already dealt with more than 500 IT security incidents, for example those created by viruses, spyware and other forms of IT intrusion. One of the team’s objectives is to encourage the creation of new CERTs in Portugal and to promote training for specialists in Computer Security Incident Response.
SPAM is the mass sending of unsolicited communications electronically, often for commercial purposes, such as marketing and publicity. The fight against SPAM is crucial to ensure that electronic communications are not overburdened with unsolicited communications, which is vital if they are to be deemed useful by the addressee. Work has been undertaken with ISPs, such as PT.COM/SAPO, with a view to the preparation of an anti-SPAM platform at the FCCN, which can be used collaboratively to fight SPAM.
Many critical infrastructures, such as those for water, electricity or fuel supply, material or electronic communication and health involve IT components, which is why cybersecurity is often involved in defending these infrastructures.
In the words of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi A. Annan:
“In an increasingly interconnected and networked world, it has become critically important to safeguard our vital systems and infrastructures against attack by cybercriminals, while instilling confidence in online transactions in order to promote trade, commerce, banking, telemedicine, e-government and a host of other e-applications. As this depends on the security practices of each and every networked country, business and citizen, we need to develop a global culture of cybersecurity.”
Programme (in Portuguese)