FIRST, CERT Coordination Centre launch free ’net protection

VANCOUVER, CANADA, JUNE 26. New methods that organisations and individuals can adopt for free to protect themselves from malicious Internet attacks were unveiled today at the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Internet Response and Security Teams.

Beginning today anyone can access the research and methodologies devised by two winning teams in a groundbreaking competition organised jointly by FIRST and its affiliate and major conference sponsor CERT Coordination Centre, the Software Engineering Institute CERT program in Pittsburgh, PA.

As Internet criminals and vandals devise ever-more ingenious ways to entrap their victims, the top body of work, from TWNCERT, Chinese Taipei, subjected a mass of attack attempts to rigorous analysis to identify which were the most persuasive.

The study covered a range of scams from phishing attempts to raid bank accounts to unsolicited pornography which lures people onto websites where PC’s and networks get corrupted.

By using TWNCERT’s materials, Internet users can learn what the scams look like and how they can be avoided, and ISP’s and organisations can protect, instruct and warn clients and staff.

The second-placed winner, KrCERT/CC from the Republic of Korea, analysed sources of spam (unsolicited email) to establish on a database the most likely origins by location and IP address so that they can be blocked.

The challenge set by FIRST and CERT Coordination Centre was to submit best practice research and methodology under the banner “protect”, reflecting the first phase of the security process.

In 2009 and the two subsequent years new challenges will be set to discover best practices in the next three phases: “detect”, “respond” and “sustain”.

Three further winners of this year’s challenge will go on-line at a later date, joining today’s top two at www.first.org and www.cert.org

“We were profoundly impressed with the high quality of the submissions from the teams who responded to our challenge,” said Jeff Carpenter [CARPENTER], CERT Coordination Centre technical manager, who chaired the judging panel.

“We are proud to make this work available worldwide and free as part of our joint mission with FIRST to improve Internet security however and wherever we can.”

TWNCERT’s prize was $5000, and KrCERT/CC Korea won $2500.

More than 400 delegates are in Vancouver from 48 countries, making this by some estimates the world’s biggest security conference.

Founded in 1990, FIRST is a non-profit body which consists of Internet emergency response teams from 194 corporations, government bodies, universities and other institutions from across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It leads the world fight-back against cyber-crime, sabotage and terrorism, and promotes co-operation between CERT’s and law enforcement agencies.

More information about the conference at: www.first.org/conference/2008
And about FIRST:
http://www.first.org/
http://www.first.org/about/

ends

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Frank Wintle

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