DHS to partner with industry to protect cyberspace.

• Author: Fein, Geoff S.
• Position: Security Beat

A National Cyber Security Summit is being planned for this fall to bring together industry and government representatives to work on efforts to prevent disabling attacks on the Internet such as the Blaster and SoBig worms that attacked computers this summer.

The summit is one of several measures that the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security has undertaken to protect government, industry and personal computer systems.

Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research & Development, Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection and acting director for the national cyber security division, said the growing reliance on the Internet is compelling the government to create partnerships.

"With nearly all of the backbone of cyberspace owned by the private sector, it is imperative that the NCSD strengthen its relationship with them," he said.

The NCSD already has begun shoring up its relationship with the private sector. In August, when the Blaster worm began to surface on the Internet, NCSD issued warnings to security professionals suggesting specific steps they could take, including shutting down Internet service providers to block the spread of the infection, Liscouski said.

Working with Internet security researchers, private industry and academia, the NCSD and the FBI were able to uncover a code embedded within the SoBig worm that was programmed to launch a denial of service attack, Liscouski said.

"Federal authorities located the 20 computers infected with this variant of the worm and asked their ISPs to shut down their Internet access," he said. "As a consequence, the second wave of the attacks never materialized."

The NCSD plans to continue its cooperation with industry, academia and the government to ensure that a potentially more serious...