[ISN] Budget: Eye on cyber-terrorism attacks

From: InfoSec News (alerts@private)
Date: Tue May 08 2007 - 22:03:09 PDT


http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Budget-Eye-on-cyber-terrorism-attacks/0,130061744,339276008,00.htm

By Munir Kotadia
ZDNet Australia
08 May 2007

The federal government has allocated more than AU$12 million over the 
next four years to expand the Australian Government Computer Emergency 
Readiness Team (GovCERT) and fight high tech crimes, including 
"cyber-terrorism".

According to federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, GovCERT will be 
enhanced in order to "provide owners and operators of Australia's 
critical infrastructure with information to help reduce the risks from 
sophisticated electronic attacks and to provide government with 
information about the electronic risks to critical infrastructure."

The funding -- allocated from this year's federal budget -- will also 
help ensure information is shared in a quick and effective way by 
government and critical infrastructure organisations.

In addition, a "cyber-exercise program" is in the works to help the 
country cope with "cyber-terrorism attacks".

"It is imperative that we remain one step ahead of emerging e-threats. 
The measures announced in this year's budget will help create a secure 
and trusted operating environment that will benefit all Australians," 
Ruddock said.

GovCERT was formed over two years ago and at the time, it was heavily 
criticised by Graham Ingram, director of the Australian Computer 
Emergency Response Team (AusCERT), for duplicating his organisation's 
role and wasting taxpayers' money.

Ingram said: "If AusCERT didn't exist, the cost to the government would 
be estimated at somewhere between AU$5 million and AU$10 million a 
yearThe wise move is to support AusCERT because the costs of not doing 
it are enormous".

Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police stands to receive AU$15.6 
million over four years from today's budget to combat complex 
technology-enabled crimes.


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