Governments need to work with consumers, vendors and ISPs to make sure they understand internet and security risks and what to do about those risks, according to Attorney General Department’s secretary, Roger Wilkins.
“This is something that needs to sit at the heart of government strategies going forward if we’re going to think of things like security and cyber crime,” Wilkins told delegates at CeBIT 2011. “Some of the constraints to prevention have to do with knowledge about threats and what to do about them, the government can help there.”
Wilkins said it was currently taking steps to construct something similar to CIFAS, which is the UK’s fraud prevention service.
“We’ve been in discussions with financial institutions in Australia,” he said. “It won’t be exactly the same way that CIFAS runs, we can learn a lot from the strengths and weaknesses of the CIFAS system. It’s fair to say that we’re not there yet, but there are productive discussions going on.
Issues surrounding security whether it’s on a national, business or personal sense will come down technological system solutions and business models, he said.
“The ultimate success and failure of security I think will have to do with technology systems – design, hardware, software and business models,” he said. “Those in the best position to control the risks have the incentive to do so. My suggestion would be that those are the key things government needs to attend to and we’re in the process of trying to do that both in Australia and internationally. There’s a lot of work to do.”
Creating the right government incentives and more global engagement, can help towards creating better circumstances where the public understands security threats and what do about them.
“Because of the global nature of the internet, there needs to be a different level of cooperation in law making and enforcement at an international level,” Wilkins said. “This is widely understood although perhaps we haven’t understood how radical this engagement is going to be. It will take more than the usual protocols and assistance agreements. It will require things that we haven’t really thought about joint efforts and task forces.”
Wilkins pointed towards the European Union’s (EU) convention on cybercrime, which represents an important step in the right direction.
“We’re going to have to go much further than EU convention on cybercrime. Nevertheless it is important and we are pushing hard for everyone to sign up to that convention and Australia is in the process of doing that,” he said. “Given the seamlessness of the global communications sector, more is going to be required.”
