Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka

The Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) today (28th January 2010) completed its annual drill to test the response capability of leading Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from Asia Pacific economies.

The  theme  of  the  drill  was  “Fighting  Cyber Crimes  with  Financial  Incentives”.  The objective of the drill is for participating teams to exercise incident response handling arrangements locally and internationally to mitigate the impact of ongoing Internet based attacks and enable better coordination of teams in the region in tackling cyber incidents.

In this year’s scenarios, financial web sites handling online transactions including e-banking, e-auction and stock trading were under different kinds of attack by cyber criminals, with an aim to paralyze online business activities, to compromise user credentials and to transfer money to fuel the underground economy.

Criminals are capitalizing on the popularity of online business which has become a profitable revenue stream for the underground economy. Criminals use professionally developed botnets (network of zombie computers) to obtain login credentials, to host phishing site, and to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Victim computers may be compromised and become part of a botnet when users browse web sites infected by malware.

Sixteen teams from fourteen economies (Australia, Brunei, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam) participated in the drill. They responded to the simulated incidents and shared information to detect, analyze the malware, and took actions to shut down or block systems hosting phishing sites or involved in DDoS attacks across the region.

“This is the sixth drill organized by APCERT members,” said Roy Ko, Chair of APCERT. “The drill is important because cyber attacks are borderless. It is vital for every Computer Security  Incident  Response  Team  (CSIRT)  to  share  the  information  and  experience  on cross-border incident handling, to refine and test the points of contacts and procedures, and to respond to active Internet attacks in progress. The capability to organize an annual drill verifies  our  competence  to  protect  our  own  cyber  security  and  our  neighbours.
 

BKIS (Vietnam) and SLCERT (Sri Lanka) were the key contributors to the scenarios
and artefacts design.
 
It is encouraging that more teams have participated in the drill this year, with many other teams and organizations worked as observers to learn from this exercise.”

About SLCERT

The Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (SLCERT) is the Center for cyber security in Sri Lanka, mandated to protect the nation’s information infrastructure and to coordinate protective measures against, and responses to cyber security threats and vulnerabilities.

SLCERT was established in the year 2006 as Sri Lanka’s National CERT, by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).

As the national CERT of Sri Lanka, SLCERT acts as the focal point for Cyber security for the nation. It is the single trusted source of advice about the latest threats and vulnerabilities affecting  computer systems and networks, and a source of expertise to assist the nation and member organizations, in responding to and recovering from Cyber attacks.  
 
About APCERT

APCERT was established by leading and national CSIRTs from the economies of the Asia Pacific region to improve cooperation, response and information sharing among CSIRTs in the region. APCERT consists of 23 CSIRTs from 16 economies.

Further information about APCERT can be found on www.apcert.org.
 

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