European Union (EU) Forms CERT Group To Fight Cyber Attacks

European Union (EU) is preparing to boost its cyber security to effectively tackle the growing incidences of cyber crimes and cyber attacks. EU has also requested governments of various European countries to consider cyber security seriously.

Cyber security experts from across the Europe have joined hands to form the Computer Emergency Response pre-configuration Team (CERT) group. The group consists of cyber security experts working in various EU institutions and a time framework of 1 year has been given to it to share its expertise. Within this time framework, the group has to show if it can effectively and efficiently respond to cyber threats and incidents on a 24x7 basis.

Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda said: "Cyber-attacks are a very real and ever-increasing threat. Whether against individual countries, companies or most recently against the European Commission, they can paralyse key infrastructure and cause huge long-term damage."She said the CERT team is a demonstration of how seriously the EU Institutions take the cyber-security threat.

Kroes said she wants the UK government to establish its own CERTs, paving the way to an EU-wide network of national and governmental emergency response teams by 2012.

Britain is under constant cyber attack and last year 1,000 potentially harmful hacking attacks were blocked, according to defence secretary Liam Fox. In a speech last week to defence suppliers, Fox said that the cost to the UK economy of cyber crime is estimated to be £27bn a year and rising. "These are attacks against the whole fabric of our society," he said.

The US Department of Commerce (DoC) is urging companies with an online presence to develop and adopt a code of contact to prevent cyber-attacks, in an indication the industry and government realise the importance of online security. The DoC is calling for the development and implementation of a code of conduct as part of a broader effort by Obama administration to fight cyber-crime.

Meanwhile, both EU and UK are working hard to ensure robust cyber security. For instance, Scotland Yard has established a cyber flying squad, EU has set up as team of cyber crime fighters, UK is looking forward for cyber crimes fighters and so on. Let us see whether India would also take its cyber law and cyber security seriously.

EU Sets Up Team Of Cyber Crimes Fighters

European Union has been taking cyber crimes very seriously. EU has recently proposed to enhance the minimum punishment for serious cyber crimes to five years and for non serious crimes to two years.

EU is also aware that besides a stringent law, it must also develop capabilities to fight cyber crimes. This is the reason why EU has set up a team of cyber crimes fighters to tackle growing cyber crimes in Europe.

Cyber attacks in Europe are increasing and recently 30 million euros' worth of carbon credits stolen by one such attack. The 10-strong team of IT security experts will guard against repeats of attacks on sensitive information, for example on the eurozone debt crisis, such as occurred on the eve of the last summit of national leaders in March.

Cyber-attacks are a very real and ever-increasing threat that can paralyse key infrastructure and cause huge long-term damage," said European Union digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes.

India on the other hand is soft upon cyber criminals. The information technology act 2000 of India, which is the sole cyber law of India, is not stringent and strong enough. After the information technology amendment act 2008, almost all the cyber crimes have been made bailable.

This has taken the sting and deterrent out of the cyber law of India. Some experts even have suggested repeal of the same and enactment of strong cyber law for India. Even on the front of policy India is not performing well. We have no cyber security policy in India and even the cyber crisis management policy of India is missing.

We urgently need to ensure strong and robust legal enablement of ICT systems in India. This enablement must include enablement of cyber law, cyber security, cyber forensics, etc. Like developed countries, India must also make its cyberspace safe and secure.