Collaboration among the information security industry is the way to defeat cybercriminals

Yesterday at the opening of the RSA Conference, a huge security conference held in San Franciso, keynote speaker Art Coviello called on the security industry to join forces in the battle against cybercriminals. He characterized Internet fraudsters as the most organized, purposeful and effective group of security experts in the world.  

"Fraud threatens the very existance of the entire information eco-system" and he called on vendors to fix the "perilous" gaps dogging security implementations together.

"It cannot be solved by a suite of products from a single vendor. It must be solved by the vendor community," he said. "In the web 2.0 world, we have seen the power of mash-ups - so why not in the security world?"

Microsoft's Scott Charney, corporate vice-president of Trustworthy Computing, said he was confident the industry would come together, "I think when you have a common enemy, which is what the cybercriminal is, it really galvanizes organizations to work closely together."

The WOT community is a powerful force

This call to action inspires us here at WOT. Our community of users is a powerful force in this ongoing cyberbattle, and growing more effective with each new person that comes aboard. Together we are an "organized, purposeful and effective group" who can make a positive impact every time someone conducts a search, transacts business or surfs randomly on the Web.

We are renewing our committment to making the Internet safer for everyone. We hope you will too. WOT is great for warning about risky sites, but without your participation we lose our strength. Please join us today, and make an effort to add your ratings and comments to a few new sites.

Mr Coviello was optimistic and confident that by joining forces the prospect of success would increase. He concluded, "There's an African proverb that advises, 'If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together'."

Watch the keynote address here.