Industry Affirms Commitment to Collaborative Effort to Combat Botnets

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, at a White House event discussing the risk botnets pose to Internet security, the Industry Botnet Group (IBG), a multi-industry group committed to working together to combat cyber threats, released its Principles for Voluntary Efforts to Reduce the Impact of Botnets in Cyberspace. The principles are designed to mitigate the threat of botnets through collaboration, education, and voluntary, flexible practices that can apply to a wide range of participants and business models.

The IBG's principles call on Internet participants to voluntarily:

• Share cyber responsibilities by employing reasonable technologies to thwart the effectiveness of botnets across all phases of the mitigation lifecycle: prevention, detection, notification, remediation, and recovery;
• Coordinate across sectors in order to better analyze, prevent, and combat threats;
• Confront the problem globally through cross-border collaboration;
• Report lessons learned with partners in the Internet ecosystem;
• Educate users by making information and resources available to them;
• Preserve flexibility for responses by different entities to an ever-evolving threat environment;
• Promote innovation to foster technological advances;
• Respect privacy; and
• Navigate the complex legal environment.

The principles recognize that the Internet is a shared resource, and that all participants—from consumers to businesses to governments—benefit from a safe, trusted online environment.

"No one entity can combat these security challenges alone," said Liesyl Franz, vice president for cybersecurity policy at TechAmerica, speaking on behalf of the IBG.  "Individually we can take measures to defend ourselves, and together we can do even more to protect the ecosystem."

Formed in January 2012, IBG is a group of companies, trade associations, and non-profit organizations concerned about the adverse impact of botnets. The group agreed to collaborate on and encourage voluntary efforts to reduce the effectiveness of botnets, the networks of infected computers that threaten the trust and confidence of online users and undermine the efficiencies and economic growth spurred by the Internet.

In his last public appearance as the Obama Administration's cybersecurity coordinator, Howard Schmidt noted, "the issue of botnets is larger than any one industry or country. This is why partnership is so important.  The principles the IBG is announcing today draw on expertise from the widest range of players with leadership coming from the across the private sector, and partnering with the government on items like education, consumer privacy and law enforcement."

For more information on the IBG and its collaborative work, including the principles and a list of related resources, please visit www.industrybotnetgroup.org.

The IBG is a voluntary group of corporations, trade associations, and non-profit organizations, and is led by a steering committee composed of BITS/The Financial Services Roundtable, Business Software Alliance, Online Trust Alliance, Software Information Industry Association, National Cable & Telecommunications Association, National Cyber Security Alliance, Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, StopBadware, TechAmerica, United States Internet Service Provider Association, United States Telecom Association. http://industrybotnetgroup.org/about/

SOURCE Industry Botnet Group