APCERT embarks on global coordination to counter cyber-ops
Wednesday, 26 February 2014 00:00
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The Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) successfully completed its annual drill to test the response capability of leading Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from Asia Pacific economies.
For the third time, APCERT involved the participation of members from the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) in this annual drill. At the same time in this exercise it involved the participation of the European Government CSIRTs group (EGC) for the first time.
The theme of the APCERT Drill 2014 was ‘Countering Cyber-ops (cyber operations) with Regional Coordination’. The exercise reflects real incidents and problems that exist on the Internet. The teams undertook the task of tracing elements from developing stages of a Cyber-op. These stages culminated to a point where CSIRT/CERTs had to dismantle the infrastructure set up by hactivists, before a Denial of Service attack unfolds on a government service.
During the exercise, the participating teams activated and tested their incident response handling arrangements. This included the need to interact between CSIRT/CERT locally and internationally, in order to dismantle the Denial of Service infrastructure from an analysis of a malicious smartphone application.
This incident response exercise, which was coordinated across many economies, reflects the strong collaboration amongst the economies. It also validates the enhanced communication protocols, technical capabilities and quality of incident responses that APCERT fosters in assuring Internet security and safety.
Twenty CSIRT teams from 16 economies of the APCERT participated in the exercise. The following were the 16 economies that participated in the drill: Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, People's Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. From the external parties, CSIRT teams from three economies (Egypt, Pakistan, and Nigeria) of the OIC-CERT and a CSIRT from Germany from the EGC participated in the drill.
Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team/Coordination Centre (CERT|CC) participated in the designing stage of the drill and conducted it and participated in the drill for the seventh consecutive year.
The Sri Sanka CERT|CC continues to collaborate with its Asian counterparts to prevent and combat cyber crime. Sri Lanka CERT|CC also plays an active role at APCERT and serves on several working groups. This is in addition to serving on the main organising committee for the Annual General Meeting, which will be held in March 2014 in Taipei.
