War Games 2008: International group fights cyber-terror

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Former White House (and EBay and Microsoft) cyber-security czar Howard Schmidt has joined what’s being billed as the first international organization dedicated to fighting the increasing number of cyber-attacks against government computers.

Seeded with a $13-million grant from the government of Malaysia, the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism, or IMPACT (always need a snappy acronym, right?), is establishing rapid-response and training facilities, Schmidt and other leaders of the effort said in a conference call Wednesday.

Blue-chip advisors include Schmidt, Symantec executive David Thompson, Google technology evangelist and Internet architect Vint Cerf, and top researchers at such well-respected cybercrime-fighting firms as F-Secure and Kaspersky Lab.

IMPACT will start recruiting governments and private companies as members next week during a summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Symantec’s Thompson said a majority of the computer attacks observed by his company, including espionage attempts and denial-of-service assaults, were against government-owned machines. Many such attacks originate overseas, making international cooperation a key to defense and analysis.

The IMPACT advisors cited past attacks on Estonia’s infrastructure as the sort of crisis that the new body could help defend against with shared expertise, computers and software. Since 90% of the Internet’s conduits are in private hands, major attacks against companies would also merit assistance, they said.

-- Joseph Menn