Germany will create a new cyber-warfare defense center next year to fight off espionage attacks, the German interior ministry said.
“We plan to create a so-called ‘National Cyber-Defense Center’ in 2011,” a spokesman told reporters on Monday. “It will work by bundling existing know-how in the area of cyber defense.”
As computer systems become more important to control essential services, from power grids to banking, computerized attacks are seen as becoming as important a part of nations’ arsenals as conventional or nuclear weaponry.
Britain announced a 650-million-pound ($1 billion) program last month, labeling cyber security a key priority despite broad cuts to government spending, including on defense.
Several Western security experts believe one computer worm, known as Stuxnet, may have been created by a national counterterrorism authority intent on crippling Iran’s nuclear program by sabotaging the industrial control system at its atomic energy plant in Bushehr.
(Reporting by Rene Wagner and Christiaan Hetzner)
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense
