M'sia Wants APCERT To Redefine Scope
8th February 2007 (Bernama)

LANGKAWI, Feb 8 (Bernama) -- Malaysia wants the Asia -Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT), a regional organisation to protect member countries against cyber threats, to start redefining its scope and become 'Cyber' Emergency Response Team.

"Due to its importance and dependent on cyber space which is getting bigger, it is now timely for APCERT to consider redefining the scope to be more than just dealing with the computer issues.

"We can expand its horizon to be 'Cyber' Emergency Response Team," Science, Technology and Innovations Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis, said in his keynote address at the APCERT 2007 annual general meeting and conference here today.

His speech was read by ministry's Parliamentary Secretary, Datuk Dr Mohd Ruddin Abdul Ghani.

Jamaludin said APCERT also needed to extend its activities beyond the region.

"This is only from my perspective, I will leave this to the rest of you to decide," he said.

This year, Malaysia, through an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, Malaysian Cyber Security Agency, has been appointed chairman of the team, succeeding Australia.

APCERT, set up in 2002, now represents 19 teams from 15 economies, many of which are leading national and government teams within each of several economies.

Apart from Malaysia and Australia, other members are Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, China, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Cyber Security Agency's director, Husin Jazri, said as a new chairman, Malaysia would further enhance the operational network among member countries in an effort to fight cyber security attack in a more effective way.

"We want to strenghthen our network and collaboration and response immediately to any cyber security attacks to make Asia Pacific safe," he said at a news conference.