CERT USA and CERT Australia to officially join forces

Carnegie Mellon's CERT Coordination Center - one of most visible Internet security groups in the U.S. - this week announced that it has joined forces with the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) to address international security issues. CERT Coordination Center Manager Jeffrey Carpenter said today that the deal could be a prototype for other, similar arrangements with computer-incident-response organizations around the world.

"We feel very strongly that the activity (and) security problems we see don't begin or end at the borders of the United States," Carpenter told Newsbytes. By partnering with sister groups in other nations, CERT/CC will be able to better track and address incidents and security concerns...

U.S., Australian Net Security Groups Ink Partnership

By David McGuire, Newsbytes

CERT/CC's arrangement with AusCERT essentially formalizes and expands a long-standing working relationship between the two entities, Carpenter said.

The groups will to continue to alert one another about incidents and possible security threats and will expand their working relationship by authoring joint papers on security-related issues.

"We will both be eyes and ears for each other," Carpenter said.

But despite the closer working relationship, CERT/CC will not share with AusCERT the names of U.S. companies that disclose security vulnerabilities or incidents to CERT/CC, Carpenter said.

CERT/CC will continue to protect that information the way it has in the past, he added.

Although leaders from CERT/CC and AusCERT see each other at international incident response conferences, most of the collaboration between the groups will take place remotely, Carpenter said.

CERT/CC's statement on the partnership is online at http://www.cert.org/about/AusCERT_release.html .

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .