Joint action vital to combat cyber crime

Joint action is needed to combat against cyber crime. A concerted effort can build an appropriate safeguard against cyber crime, said ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) CEO Reshan Dewapura.

Delivering the keynote address at the fourth annual national conference organised by the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT), a fully owned subsidiary ICTA, he said that only through joint actions of governments and citizens that a reliable shield against cyber crime can be built.

Citing at the outset Research In Motion’s recent catastrophe as an indication of the threat that cyber-warriors could pose, Dewapura stressed the need for concerted effort to stall cyber crime.

Cyber crime is a real threat requiring all possible endeavours he said: “Cyberspace is not so different from the traditional spaces of social interaction. Threats in cyberspace are very real.

The number of cyber attacks in the world is constantly growing and so is the cost due to cyber crime. Cyber crime affects the very base of the social and economic well-being of the general public.

“Today, with new realities and this major new threat to security - not only to the citizens but the very functioning of the national economies, each state’s contribution to combating cyber crime becomes particularly important.

“There is no country that, in this age of cyber terrorism, can remain indifferent and unresponsive, or rely on nature or geography (like in the old days) to protect it against malicious acts, because in addition to bringing people closer, the Internet has eliminated distances and differences, while placing at the hands of criminals a very powerful means of organised acts of crime.

Dewapura said: “The e-Sri Lanka initiative, of the Government of Sri Lanka, commenced in 2005, under the strategies of the Government’s policy document Mahinda Chinthana.

This initiative looked to take the benefits of ICT to every citizen in every village and to re-engineer how the Government works.

“It was envisaged that, Sri Lanka will become an ICT driven nation and cyber space will be a major medium for service delivery.

“The ICTA, as the apex body for ICT in the country, found it necessary to establish a mechanism to tackle the potential threat from cyber crime in the face of this e-development activity, which saw huge amounts of ICT Infrastructure and IT Systems being implemented.

The Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), was created as a fully owned subsidiary of ICTA in 2006, as the Center for cyber security in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka CERT has been mandated to protect nation’s information infrastructure, to coordinate protective measures and respond to cyber security threats and vulnerabilities, said Dewapura.

Today, critical infrastructures such as transportation, public utilities such as electricity and water supply and health care can all be targets of cyber criminals.

Therefore, the necessity for all public and private sector institutions to work together, to establish public-private partnerships for capacity building in law enforcement and the judiciary, as well as training and dealing better with cyber-attacks should be high on the agenda, he said.