Vision of APCERT
APCERT will work to help create a safe, clean and reliable cyber space in the Asia Pacific Region through global collaboration
Mission Statement
APCERT will maintain a trusted contact network of computer security experts in the Asia Pacific region to improve the region's awareness and competency in relation to computer security incidents through:
- Enhancing Asia Pacific regional and international cooperation on information security;
- Jointly developing measures to deal with large-scale or regional network security incidents;
- Facilitating information sharing and technology exchange, including information security, computer virus and malicious code among its members;
- Promoting collaborative research and development on subjects of interest to its members;
- Assisting other CERTs and CSIRTS in the region to conduct efficient and effective computer emergency response;
- Providing inputs and/or recommendations to help address legal issues related to information security and emergency response across regional boundaries.
Background
With the rapid development of the Internet, many Asia Pacific economies are now increasingly dependent on public network applications such as online banking, online stock trading, e-business, e-government and e-customs. The protection of the various national information infrastructures that make up this new and emerging Asia Pacific e-economy is critical to the region's political and economic stability and security. The need to protect these critical national information infrastructures is also urgent. Attacks on information infrastructures are increasing in frequency, sophistication and scale. For example, the Code Red II Internet worm integrated characteristics of a computer virus, Trojan, Worm and Hacking activity to propagate quickly across the Internet and infect massive numbers of host computers. Code Red II was fully automated to search for hosts to infect with no respect for national or international boundaries. Subsequent worms such as Nimda also illustrate this recent and
concerning trend. This growing threat in the Asia Pacific region requires a collaborative approach with the various CERT and CSIRT organizations taking the lead role with full support from their respective governments. To address this urgent need, Asia Pacific Incident Response Teams propose the establishment of a group called Asia Pacific CERT (APCERT). APCERT would have an operational focus and be open to all suitably qualified CERTs and CSIRTs in the Asia Pacific region.
For further information about APCERT, please visit http://www.apcert.org/.