LSEC plays leading role in Europe's cybersecurity strategy as partner in anti-botnet pilots

Europe bands together to fight against botnets

LSEC leads pilot developments in Advanced Cyber Defence Center with EU support

Cologne - Leuven, 13.02.2013 – LSEC - Association of information security companies in Europe and eco – Association the German Industry together with 28 partners from 14 European countries are launching a project against one of the biggest Internet security threats: Every fifth computer is currently estimated to be part of a botnet used by cyber criminals to infect end user computers with malware and gain remote access to them. Kicking off today in Frankfurt, the association begins its work as the coordinator of the Advanced Cyber Defence Center (ACDC) which is supported by the European Union.

The project will offer a full range of services for increased cyber security ranging from malware recognition to prevention. The campaign partners are large public network providers, software producers, scientific institutions, law enforcement and administrative bodies, banks, as well as certification authorities.
"Working together to combat botnets is fundamentally important: From providers to the police and all the way to the end users. We have seen how effective that can be at the national level with the Anti-Botnet-Advisory Center. We look forward to taking this effective approach to defy botnets in Europe together with our strong partners. With the Advanced Cyber Defence Center we are aiming to develop a series of activities to better cope with cyber threats, more in particulat botnets," says LSEC ceo Ulrich Seldeslachts
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The Advanced Cyber Defence Center is an important building block for the cyber security strategy of the EU. At the launch press conference on February 7th, EU-Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "We need to protect our networks and systems and improve their resilience. To this end we should ensure that all actors play their part in fighting botnets and malware. Cyber threats are not contained to national borders: nor should cyber security be." The Head of Unit DG Connect of the European Commission, Giuseppe Abbamonte, adds: "ACDC is the first initiative launched in the context of the EU Cyber Security Strategy. This project will improve protection of our networks and systems against botnets and malware."

On of the intended applications in the EU pilot project is the Clearing House which receives reports from the project partners on security issues like spam campaigns in their networks, stolen data, or DDoS attacks. Affected parties such as end users, mobile phone providers, and banks, providers of security solutions or hosting providers are then informed of the incidents and receive support via the central website http://www.botfree.eu (http://www.botvrij.be and http://www.sansbot.be) from national support centers to remove the malware. The support centers are supposed to offer the necessary downloadable tools. What's more, small and mid-sized companies receive support if their websites are infected with malware.

In addition, the Advanced Cyber Defence Center is committed to identifying infected websites and committed to removing malware programs. Participating providers will also detect anomalies in their networks, botnets in the cloud, and within mobile networks and report them to the Clearing House.
The pilot project has a total budget of 16 million Euros and is supposed to initially run for 30 months.
A fact sheet about the project is available at http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/apps/projects/factsheet/index.cfm?project_ref=325188.
The speech given by EU-Commissioner Neelie Kroes at the launch of the EU Cyber Security Strategy is available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-104_en.htm.

LSEC (http://www.lsec.be) - Leaders in Security is an industry association of information security companies. Founded in 2002, LSEC organizes with and for the industry various information security events related to enterprise, government and end users, LSEC brings together the expertise in the industry in industrial research projects such as ACDC, FIRE, MOBES and the Eurtopean Security Innovation Network. LSEC's members include some of the largest expert companies and top security experts on a global level such as RSA, Vasco, Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, G-Data, Qualys, and many others.

Press contact:
LSEC – Leaders in Security
Kasteelpark 10 – 3001 Heverlee
http://www.lsec.be

Ulrich Seldeslachts, phone +32 16 32 8541, acdc at lsec.be

eco - Association the German Internet Industry
Lichtstr. 43h, 50825 Cologne, Germany
http://www.eco.de

Katrin Mallener, Phone.: +49 221/70 00 48 260, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Petra Greitschus, Phone. +49 221/70 00 48 261, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

San Francisco, CA, US, February 26th, 2013

Congratulations to LSEC Member UCL, where Prof. Em. Jean-Jacques Quisquater receives 2013 RSA Award Excellence in field of Mathematics!

The award, presented during the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco, February 26th is yet another milestone of the Belgian expertise in information security on a global level.
The annual award has been given in the previous years to Eli Biham, Professor; Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Computer Science; Dr. Mitsuru Matsui, Senior Researcher, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Charles W. Rackoff, University of Toronto, ...

Quisquater has been awarded for his works in the domain of cryptography and the development of smartcards and the use of cryptography for eID cards in Europe and around the world.

Congratulations from the industry!

Prof. Dr. Bart Preneel expresses his opinion on Terzake on the recent developments of the privacy infringements of the internet and how to cope with them.

http://www.iminds.be/nl/blog/p/detail/hoe-je-privacy-vrijwaren-op-het-internet