The BBC reports that internet security techniques must adapt to keep up with the rising tide of net attacks. The issue is top of the agenda at the world’s biggest security conference hosted by vendor RSA.

Recent incidents such as the high-profile attacks on Google in China have highlighted the new challenges. “The attacks are getting more malicious, sophisticated, and from different directions,” said the chief executive of Verisign Mark McLaughlin.

Mr McLaughlin’s company manages the .com and .net domains of the internet. “Certainly as more utilisation of the net occurs and more people go online, then the more security concerns have to go up. Throw cloud computing on top of that as well as more people accessing information via their phones, the growth of the smart grid and health records coming online and we have a situation that means people have got to be more forward thinking about security and how to address it.”

Verisign itself is the target of around one to two thousand attacks a day, he added. “They come from all sorts of sources: from the frat kids trying to take down the internet to state-sponsored actors who are just pressing to see where the vulnerabilities are and how you react so they can use the information for the next time.”

Throughout this week a lot of attention will be paid to the recent attacks that Google faced when the Gmail accounts of human rights activists were hacked.

The Chinese government denies involvement but the search giant threatened to pull out of the country following the incident. Google is now involved in talks with senior officials to try to resolve the situation.

While those diplomatic efforts proceed in the background, at RSA this week the Google attack will dominate because it has brought the issue of cyber-espionage out into the open.

“This type of attack has been going on for a while, not necessarily China, not necessarily Google but this situation has now brought it to the forefront of people’s minds,” industry commentator and RSA chair Hugh Thompson told BBC News.

“This is the time when as a nation and security community we need to look at these big threats and work out how we can battle them as a community.”

Access the full article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8544413.stm