Malaysia now CCRA authorising member
The Star (4 Oct 2011)

PETALING JAYA:Four years after Cybersecurity Malaysia was accepted as a participating member of the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA), it is now an authorising member.

This means that Cybersecurity Malaysia labs can now-evaluate and certify IT products as ISO standard 15408, which is-regarded as the international benchmark for IT security evaluations.

This standard addresses-product functionality, development-environ-ment, documentation, and product-testing measures. The-certification is recognised in 26 countries including the United States, Britain, South Korea, Japan and Germany.

The official announcement was made at the opening ceremony of the 12th International Common Criteria Conference here.

Science, Technology and Innova-tion Minister, Datuk Seri Maximus Ongkili said the-acceptance will uplift Malaysia as a regional centre for security evaluation and certification of ICT products.

"The Government aspires to raise the level of our national competitiveness through ICT-product evaluation and-certification in line with the vision to transform the nation into a knowledge-based-economy," he said when officiating the-opening of the conference.

Ongkili added that the-certification will allow more-developers to participate in Malaysia's ICT security ser-vices market which is is estimated to grow to more than RM400mil by 2014.

Being accepted as a CCRA-autho-rising member will also allow local ICT industry players to better compete in the global arena, Ongkili said.

"In order to compete-worldwide, our products need to meet-globally recognised-standards especially when-businesses intend to export their products," he said.

Ongkili also expects the local ICT industry to grow and develop more innovative products for the ICT security market.

He said the ICT industry-contributes 7%to the national Gross Do-mestic Product and about 2%of that comes from the ICT security sector.

"The cybersecurity sector is growing because more and more people are concerned over-security particularly in the-government, e-commerce and banking sectors," he said.

He added that the quality of such products will also improve as-developers are motivated to get their products recognised globally.

Cybersecurity Malaysia chief executive officer Lt Col (Rtd) Prof Datuk Husin Jazri said Malaysia can look ahead to offer ICT security assurance services-particularly to the Asean region as well as Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member-countries.

"ICT solutions developers in the region as well as in OIC member countries can leverage on the Common Criteria benchmark and compete effectively," he said.