Conference will key on improving Internet security
Published Monday September 29th, 2008
Meeting Three-day event will draw experts from around the world
Leading researchers, police, military, industry and information technology experts are gathering in the province to discuss ways to improve privacy, security and trust on the Internet.
The sixth annual conference on privacy, security and trust (PST), co-hosted by the University of New Brunswick and National Research Council, will take place in Fredericton from Wednesday to Friday.
The conference is a way to bring those researchers, along with other experts from around the world, together to discuss new ways to combat those who would seek to cripple important national infrastructure or tap into private information for illicit gain.
UNB has established a nation-wide network of researchers focused on privacy, security and trust, says PST 2008 conference chair Ali Ghorbani.
Ghorbani is also the dean of the faculty of computer science at UNB Fredericton.
An increasing global emphasis is being placed on finding new ways to ensure information is secure and private, he noted.
"The more new technology, particularly in the information, communications and technology sector and the more information we process over this ICT infrastructure, the more we have to deal with the security of that infrastructure and the security of information on that infrastructure."
Researchers at the three-day conference will discuss topics such as critical infrastructure protection, network and wireless security, anonymity and privacy versus accountability and the challenge of address privacy and security concerns when it comes to government e-services such as e-health.
Ghorbani said Canada as a whole is doing well when it comes to dealing with privacy, security and trust issues although in the past decade it had lagged behind others when it comes to critical infrastructure protection.
"But now in the past few years Canada is also doing well in that," he said. "UNB is one of the leading groups doing work on critical infrastructure protection."
But while Canada has improved overall, when it comes to dealing with IT-based security and privacy issues it's a never-ending battle, he cautioned.
"With this kind of fast-moving technology, you always have to catch-up and that's hard and that's why we think we should bring more people into PST research."
The threats to Internet security are as diverse as the web itself.
They can range from young teenagers looking for a quick thrill and to test their computer-skills to international criminal organizations and even national governments seeking to wage a new form of warfare.
"You always have bad guys who want to do some harm," said Ghorbani.
"Some aspects of this happen because people just want to prove themselves that they can break into a system or some just for fun, so it's not always malicious."
But then there are the larger, more insidious players.
The Russian Federation is widely suspected to have used cyber-warfare to cripple the IT infrastructure in the former Soviet republics of Estonia and Georgia.
More countries will likely use such tactics increasingly in the future, Ghorbani warned.
"This is going to be part of any bad guy's agenda in the future because it can be done in anonymity," he said. "It is something that should be a concern."
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