By next year, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nationshope to put in place a cooperation framework for sharing real-time information on computer threats as well as assessments of vulnerabilities, the ministers said in a joint statement after a two-day meeting here.

By 2005, all of ASEAN's 10 members are expected to have put in place Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to deal with attacks from hackers or viruses.

Each CERT will be linked to the regional framework to form an ASEAN-wide network, the ministers said.

"Under the national CERTs, each ASEAN country will create a specialist group ... that will be trained and equipped to deal with cyber security threats," Singapore's Minister of Information, Communications and the Arts, Lee Boon Yang, told a joint news conference.

"The intention is that having been alerted or having experienced such computer virus attacks, they (CERTs) will immediately be able to use this common framework to share their experience and the nature of the threat with their ASEAN partners.

"Everybody gets an early warning and begins to take action to prevent the spread of the virus."

Philippine Transportation and Communications Undersecretary Virgilio Pena said six of ASEAN's 10 members had already set up their own computer specialist teams.

He said ASEAN members were at "various stages" of developing their CERTs because it involved coordination with the private sector.

The ultimate plan is to link an ASEAN-wide CERTs network with similar frameworks in the Asia-Paficic region and globally, Pena said.

In his keynote address to the meeting on Thursday, Singapore's Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, said Southeast Asia must develop a "common and sustained" approach to protect telecommunications and computer networks from virus and hacker attacks.

Goh said attacks by three computer viruses last month had cost an estimated 800 million US dollars in damage globally and underscored the challenges facing modern technological societies.

Pena said although national CERTs swung into action during these virus attacks, there had been no cooperation among ASEAN members.

"This is what we are trying to establish in terms of connecting the CERTs of ASEAN countries so that there will be inter-country early warning signals," he said.

Lee said without regional cooperation, ASEAN will be "much weaker" in dealing with the problem".

"The strength of the resilience of ASEAN I guess ... depends very much on our ability to share information on a timely basis," he said.

On another front, the ministers also agreed to expedite bilateral arrangements under which tests on telecommunications products in one country will be recognised in another, in a bid to save costs and spur trade flows.

Lee said Singapore will launch talks for Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) with Brunei and Indonesia by next year, hoping to encourage other ASEAN members to begin their own initiatives which would lead to a regional network of MRAs.

Under the current set-up, for example, telecommunications products manufactured and tested in Malaysia would have to undergo another series of tests -- which could take weeks -- in the country where they are exported to.

"Such harmonised standards for telecommunication equipment testing will lessen time to market and lower business costs, help create a common market for ICT (information and communications technology) goods and services," the joint statement said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

SPACE.WIRE