Clinton calls for Internet-security summit
Published: 14 Feb 2000 10:44 GMT
The White House will convene an Internet-security summit with high-tech industry leaders next week to plot a response to this week's stunning attacks on the Web's most popular sites.
As many as 20 top Internet executives are expected to meet with President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, Commerce Secretary William Daley and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger.
The announcement of the meeting came as the attacks appeared to have ebbed and Internet companies stepped up efforts to counter them when detected.
The National Security Council has taken the lead in organising the conference, a sign that the Clinton administration views the attacks as a potential security threat rather than as a nuisance crime or a moderate economic disruption. A week later, the US Chamber of Commerce will host another meeting on high-tech vulnerabilities, a closed-door retreat involving more than 100 Internet and technology companies.
Indeed, Washington is spending billions of dollars a year on critical infrastructure protection, with most of the money so far going to the Pentagon. But officials said that events this week have highlighted the need to reach out even more to the private sector to help tighten security on the Internet.
"We're not calling this a national-security issue per se, but on the other hand, we're not saying, 'Oh, well, it's just the private sector,' " said Jeffrey Hunker, White House director for critical infrastructure protection. "This is something that has affected the economy... and that alone makes it very important."
The Pentagon, meanwhile, ordered an examination of more than am US military computers worldwide to make sure none were compromised by hackers. The people or groups responsible for the attacks are believed to be masking their activities by using computer servers around the country as launch platforms. Navy Capt. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said the check of nearly 10,000 military networks is cautionary.
The hastily organised Internet-security meeting, set for Tuesday, is meant to be a brainstorming session on how to reduce the Internet's vulnerability to attack, administration officials and technology-company executives said.
The events this week have heightened calls in Washington for greater government oversight of the Web -- an extremely controversial matter -- but also for better self-policing among Internet companies. Both concerns are likely to be addressed at the session. The administration also wants "to send a message to the American public that the sky isn't falling," Mr. Hunker said.
Companies believed to have been invited to participate include several that were hit in the attacks, including eBay and Yahoo!, as well as other industry leaders such as IBM, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. People familiar with the matter said they also believed invitations were going out to major Internet-service providers such as America Online and MCI WorldCom.
Thursday, companies hunkered down and kept quiet about any service problems. "We don't see anything unusual today," said Gene Shklar, vice president of Keynote Systems, a Web-monitoring firm. He added that late Wednesday, "we saw something funny happen at the Web site of Excite," which had a partial shutdown. "It was consistent with what we've seen" with the other sites, such as Amazon and Yahoo, that suffered attacks.
A spokeswoman for Excite At Home confirmed the partial shutdown. "We were attacked (Wednesday) night," she said. "It was similar to the other attacks and lasted about an hour. Currently, the service is fully operational." The company was able to contain the attack, she said, because "we were monitoring our traffic and service very closely."
Online auctioneer eBay also confirmed a second attack Wednesday at around 8.30pm. "We were able to detect it and block it without any disruption to service," a company spokesman said.
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