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A group of technology and business associations today released a series of recommendations for minimizing the threat of cyber-crime and hacker attacks, including a request for congressional funding of an early warning alert network and a national media campaign to promote safer Internet use at home.

The National Cyber Security Partnership, which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance and the TechNet lobbying group, also asked Congress to provide money to help develop a cybersecurity information clearinghouse for the business community.

"This process has been extremely rewarding as we brought to the table some of the brightest minds for solving some of the most serious cybersecurity challenges as outlined in the national strategy," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a member of the partnership. "These recommendations are transitioning talk to action."

The extensive list of recommendations -- including a "Home User Cyber Security Tool Kit" and the recommendation to designate a "cyber security month" -- are some of the first to come from the partnership. They form a response to criticism from government officials and some private security experts that businesses are not responding quickly enough to President Bush's cybersecurity plan.

The White House's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," which was released in February 2003, requires federal agencies to better secure their computer networks, but does little more than recommend that the private sector work with Homeland Security officials to strengthen their systems against the growing problem of hackers, viruses and other online threats.

The "Early Warning Alert Network" proposed today would allow the companies that oversee some of the nation's most critical computer systems -- ones that control dams, the electricity grid and communications networks -- to better cope with cyberattacks.

The clearinghouse, which would be known as the "National Crisis Coordination Center," would be a centralized version of 22 existing "information sharing and analysis centers" (ISACs) created to share threat and vulnerability data within different industries.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:28 AM