Stories about: Internet Security Alliance

A coalition of technology companies and others doing business on the Internet have released a list of nine steps they believe consumers and remote workers should take to protect themselves and keep their computers from being used as weapons on the Internet.

Maybe you missed this news last week amid all the hubbub about the Slammer worm: Security researcher Next Generation Security Software Ltd. (NGS) said it will stop sharing information with the CERT Coordination Center, the US government-funded clearinghouse that tracks viruses, worms and other security problems. So what? Well, when NGS finds a security hole, it will notify its clients and the software vendor, but not CERT. Which sounds pretty selfish of NGS -- until you consider whom CERT was passing the information along to.

A long-simmering dispute between the CERT Coordination Center and vulnerability research companies flared into public view Monday when Next Generation Security Software Ltd. (NGSS) announced it is severing its relationship with CERT, saying that the government-sponsored Internet security reporting center passed vulnerability information to third parties.

It was a scene that would be familiar to officials at Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. An executive from Microsoft watched as a government official told a gathering of reporters that there was a serious problem with a Microsoft product.

Yesterday's announcement that another coalition of private-sector companies has joined the battle to beef up security on the Internet is raising concerns about the coordination of those activities and possible duplication of effort.

The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC), a government-funded Internet security group, said last week that it would begin offering private-sector companies the advance notice security alerts that it had previously only shared with the government.

The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC), a government-funded Internet security group, said Thursday that it would begin offering to private sector companies advance notice security alerts that it had previously only shared with the government.

If your company counts on the Web for any form of commerce, I'll bet your marketing department is still breathing down your neck asking if you're safe from distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks. Well, you can tell them that while there's no foolproof solution, there are steps you can take to prevent becoming a victim of - or an unwitting co-conspirator in - such attacks.