News
CERT: No Spike in Internet Attacks After Plane Crashes
- By Scott Bekker
- 09/12/2001
The IT security watchdog group at the
CERT Coordination Center reported Wednesday that all appeared quiet on the cyberfront in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States.
"At this time, the CERT/CC is not seeing any significant increases in incident activity on the Internet," Martin Lindner, incident handling team leader for the CERT Coordination Center, said in a statement to the media Wednesday morning.
The CERT advisory came slightly more than 24 hours after three hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in western Pennsylvania following a struggle between passengers and hijackers.
A common fear among experts who try to plan for terrorism attack scenarios is that a coordinated attack on the IT security infrastructure could precede, coincide or closely follow a physical attack.
The CERT Coordination Center said it released the statement because of a flood of inquiries about the state of Internet security.
"Recent events might cause people to examine the need to protect the information infrastructure. This examination is always a prudent step," Lindner said.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.