German Interior
Secretary Otto Schily is setting up a Task Force to deal with the hacker threat following a spate of recent attacks on popular US Web sites.
The committee is intended to clarify the hacker potential in Germany and take
measures to strengthen and coordinate the fight against such attacks.
German security authorities will also take up contact with US authorities,
in order to form a common defense policy against all hacker attacks.
“Security in information technology is a key problem for
every modern political economy,” said Schily. “For this reason the federal government will
take all available measures to enable IT security to be guaranteed in
future.”
He went on to say that state and economy must work together to combat this
new type of attack on the security of economic activity. Such attacks should
not be seen as technical games, but are “actions which must be hindered at
every cost,” said Schily.
A further part of his plan is to threaten hackers
with “considerable legal consequences and liability for all damage caused.”
The new Task Force will be made up of employees of the German Ministry for
the Interior, the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology
(BSI) and the German Federal Criminal Department (BKA).
