From: BusinessWeek.com —

A report released yesterday by the U.S. federal Commission on Cybersecurity warns that the U.S. (and, by implication, other developed countries) are losing the war against cyber crime.

Among the key recommendations of the report, titled Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency, are the immediate creation of a U.S. national Center for Cybersecurity Operations and the appointment of a special White House adviser to oversee it.

As Keith Epstein of BusinessWeek.com reports, “[The Commission] concluded that the U.S. badly needs a comprehensive cybersecurity policy to replace an outdated checklist of security requirements for government agencies under the existing Federal Information Security Management Act.”

The proposed cybersecurity agency would have jurisdiction over both public and private networks.

“The report calls for the creation of a Center for Cybersecurity Operations that would act as a new regulator of computer security in both the public and private sector. Active policing of government and corporate networks would include new rules and a ‘red team’ to test computers for vulnerabilities now being exploited with increasing sophistication and frequency by identity and credit card thieves, bank fraudsters, crime rings and electronic spies.”

A year-end report by Internet security firm F-Secure, released last week, warned that the cybercrime situation worsened considerably this past year and will probably continue on that path in 2009 unless law enforcement agencies take concerted, collective, global action against cyber crooks.

In the report, Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, called for the establishment of a global ‘Internetpol’ cyber crime- fighting agency, noting that the idea, “has been received with great interest internationally.”