AusCERT
AusCERT
AusCERT is the national Computer Emergency Response Team for Australia and provides computer information security advice to the Australian public, and to its members, which include the higher education sector. AusCERT is the single point of contact for dealing with computer security incidents affecting or involving Australian networks.
AusCERT monitors and evaluates global computer network threats and vulnerabilities, including after hours when AusCERT staff remain on-call to respond to new information in a time critical manner. AusCERT publishes security bulletins, drawing on material from a variety of sources, with recommended prevention and mitigation strategies.
AusCERT's incident management services can be an effective way to halt an ongoing computer attack or, provide practical advice to assist in responding to and recovering from an attack.
AusCERT is an independent, not-for-profit team of IT security professionals, based at The University of Queensland. The University of Queensland is one of Australia's premier learning and research institutions. UQ continues to attract the vast majority of the state's highest academic achievers and is renowned nationally and internationally for the quality of its teaching and research. In 1998-99 it was named Australia's University of the Year and it continues to enjoy the highest overall rating for Queensland universities in the annual Good Universities Guide.
AusCERT covers its operating costs through a variety of sources including member subscriptions and the provision of computer security training and education. The Commonwealth government currently funds certain parts of AusCERT's operations.
Within the University, AusCERT is part of Information Technology Services (ITS) which operates the university's network. The network is currently ranked 17th largest in Australia and provides direct services to over 65,000 users. ITS also operates the University's supercomputers and many of its largest servers and an Internet Service Provider (ISP), UQconnect, which provides both retail and corporate services to a growing user base.
As an active member of the Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT), AusCERT has access to accurate, timely and reliable information about emerging computer network threats and vulnerabilities on a regonal and global basis.
Additionally, AusCERT maintains a large network of trusted CERT contacts in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and throughout Asia. We use these contacts to receive early warning of global threats and to assist in responding to incidents which span jurisdictions.
About the AusCERT Conference
The annual AusCERT conference has proven to be the premier information security event in Australia for IT security professionals and anyone with an interest in the field. Beginning with 200 delegates at the first conference in 2002, the conference has grown, hosting around 1200 delegates this year. AusCERT conferences attract delegates and speakers from organisations worldwide. Past keynote speakers have included such prominent information security experts as Bruce Schneier, Howard Schmidt, Mary-Ann Davidson and Marcus Sachs. AusCERT2009 will be held 17th-22nd May and more information is available on the website at: http://conference.auscert.org.au/conf2009/
Become an AusCERT Member
Call our Business Management Team on 1800 648 458 to discuss your membership requirements. Information about AusCERT membership can be found at http://www.auscert.org.au/membership
The benefits of AusCERT membership include:
- Full security bulletin service covering a wide range of platforms, systems and issues.
- Inclusion of one mobile to our early warning notification service (SMS) about critical issues which require early attention
- After hours incident response assistance to help resolve incident emergencies
- Priority assistance for incident response requests during office hours
- Member only content on the AusCERT web-site
- Access to the AusCERT blog - an informal means for AusCERT to communicate timely information which may not be suited to a more detailed security bulletin. It covers topics from information security, computer network attacks and vulnerabilities to Internet security and governance
- Discounts to AusCERT Conferences and Training Workshops
- Member profile security bulletins by email ie the ability to identify which types of security bulletins you want to know most about.