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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 22, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 38
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Breaking News -
Security:
U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, Carnegie Mellon Partner
Carnegie Mellon University and the Department of Homeland Security
announced
a
partnership with the university's CERT Coordination Center to create US-CERT,
a coordination point for prevention, protection and response to cyber attacks
across the Internet.
The US-CERT will begin as a partnership between the National Cyber Security
Division within the Department of Homeland Security and Carnegie Mellon's CERT
Coordination Center. The US-CERT will grow to include other partnerships with
private-sector security vendors and domestic and international organizations.
These groups will work together to coordinate national and international
efforts to prevent cyber attacks, protect systems, and respond to the effects
of cyber attacks across the Internet.
Carnegie Mellon's CERT Coordination Center was formed in November 1988
within
the Software Engineering Institute by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency after an Internet worm brought 10 percent of Internet-connected systems
to a halt. The Software Engineering Institute is a federally-funded research
and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon for the U.S. Department of
Defense, the Software Engineering Institute's sponsor. CERT Coordination
Center also is affiliated with Carnegie Mellon's Cyber Security
Laboratory.
Today, Carnegie Mellon's CERT Coordination Center alerts U.S. industry and
computer users worldwide to potential threats to the security of their systems
and provides information about how to avoid, minimize, or recover from the
damage. The center has played a key role in coordinating responses to major
security events such as the Code Red worm, Melissa virus, and, most recently,
the MS Blaster worm and the Sobig.F virus.
Speaking at a briefing in Washington, D.C., Carnegie Mellon University
President Jared L. Cohon expressed enthusiasm for the partnership between the
CERT Coordination Center and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as
its potential for future partnerships with industry and other
universities.
"Carnegie Mellon is proud and pleased to have this opportunity to work with
the Department of Homeland Security. We are committed to maintaining our
longstanding leadership in cyber security and to building additional strength
in this critical area," Cohon said.
"Our nation's growing use of the Internet for safety-critical applications
as
well as business transactions, coupled with the increased sophistication and
speed of cyber-attacks increases the risk that cyber-attacks can cause
significant damage in short periods of time" said Richard D. Pethia, director
of the CERT Coordination Center. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to
work with DHS and other partners to aggressively and continually improve our
nation's cyber-security incident response capability.
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