Korea's liberal democrats propose anti-hacker team

Tokyo, Feb 16 Asia Pulse - A Liberal Democratic Party task force proposed Tuesday that a team of specialists be set up by the end of March at South Korea's Cabinet Secretariat to inspect government Web sites, sources said.

The proposal comes as the government seeks to prevent a reoccurrence of the recent attacks by hackers on its Web pages. The panel also proposed that a council of private-sector computer systems specialists be established. The task force said that general awareness about computer systems security remained "limited" and warned of "a more serious situation of cyber terrorism" if action was not taken. The LDP panel emphasized that the security of government Web sites must be strengthened as quickly as possible and recommended that emergency checks be conducted by the end of this month on computer systems which are not linked to the Internet.

The committee also called for the ahead-of-schedule implementation of planned anti-hacker measures. The panel also recommended that within two to three years the National Police Agency, Defense Agency, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and other ministries overhaul their Net security systems.

It also proposed that issues related to Net security be taught in school and that laws be drafted to tackle online crime and strengthen penalties against hackers.