Wednesday 4 September 2013

Governments and Businesses Pool Resources to Create International Cyber Security Alliance - Computers - Security

Countries across the world are dealing with the menace of cybercrime. The all-pervasive nature and the possibility to commit Internet crime from any part of the world poses lot of challenges for counter crime agencies. Different definitions and lack of homogenous laws across various countries further complicates the fight against cybercrime. The Council of European Convention on Cybercrime is only major law that has wider acceptance. However, only 18 countries have ratified the Convention, and 25 other signatories are yet to ratify. Cybercriminals take advantage of the diversity of the laws and lack of effective coordination between different countries to perpetrate crime from any part of the world. The evolvement of attack techniques and easily available attack tools has also helped offenders in their illegal pursuit.

Recently, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom (U.K) came together to support a business-led International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) at Buckinghamshire, U.K. The international agency comprises of various national and multinational companies, which include Cassidian, Transactis, Core Security Technologies, McAfee, Shop Direct Group (SDG), Trend Micro, Article 10, A and R Edelman and Yodel. The alliance seeks to assist both domestic and international counter crime agencies both in terms of expertise as well as funding. Essentially, the alliance will pool funding from governments and expertise from the business sector to help counter crime agencies to fight the sophisticated threats in the cyberspace. To begin with, the alliance will coordinate with EUROPOL, the European law enforcement agency. Mr. David Blunkett, former British Home Secretary, and current Member of Parliament (MP) is the chairman of the alliance. The alliance repo rtedly will also make investments in training and facilitate global exchange of cyber security expertise.

While cybercrime is growing in sophistication and frequency, counter crime agencies face constraints terms of human capital and financial resources. Growing risk profile of the IT environment has resulted in increased demand for professionals qualified in computer forensics, incident management, masters of security science, penetration testing and computer science degree among others. In the recent times, cyber-attackers have been aggressively targeting government bodies and business organizations resulting in greater number of data breach incidents. Greater coordination and timely sharing of information is crucial to combat the ever evolving threat of cybercrime. The alliance expects addition to the sponsors and partners in future.

Cyber security awareness is also crucial to deal with the persistent threats in the cyberspace. E-learning and online degree programs may help improve cyber security practices among home Internet users and working professionals. Cybercrime is growing at an alarming rate and the recent wave of cyber-attacks has again reinforced the need for greater cooperation and coordination among different nation states. Counter crime professionals may take advantage of online university degree programs and enhance their awareness of security threats and improve capabilities to combat Internet based crime.

Countries must also work and cooperate to bring uniformity in cybercrime laws across the world. Uniformity of laws and greater coordination between different intra and inter-country counter crime agencies is crucial to bring the perpetrators of cybercrime to justice.





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