From Spiegel:  The number of cyber attacks in Germany and abroad has skyrocketed in recent years, costing the economy upwards of 10 billion euros annually. In response, the government in Berlin is planning to create an agency dedicated to documenting and stopping such high-tech assaults. …

[T]he rising number of cyber attacks on facilities in Germany has now led Berlin to unveil plans for a new cyber defense agency.

"There has been a drastic increase in the number of these so-called electronic attacks on German government and administration networks," Stefan Paris, a spokesman for the German Interior Ministry, told reporters on Monday. He said that there were 1,600 such attacks between January and September of 2010, a big increase from 2009, when 900 cyber assaults were recorded over the full year.

The new center will combine the findings of all of the government agencies that have thus far been tasked with identifying and combating cyber attacks, including the Federal Office for Information Security, federal criminal investigators and German intelligence agencies. …

According to experts, a new virus is created somewhere in the world about every two seconds on average. Some 40,000 websites are infected daily. Paris said that most of the cyber attacks documented in Germany had their origin in China.

Berlin isn’t alone in its concern over the problem. The US military activated a new unit called Cyber Command in May in an attempt to ward off cyber attacks and to increase the military’s own security.  (photo: DPA)

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