MAAWG Hosts Joint European Meeting with LAP/EU CNSA; French Officials to Address Paris Summit on Spam and Malware

SAN FRANCISCO, October 6, 2011 -

A global summit of online security experts will convene in Paris at a joint MAAWG-LAP meeting featuring keynotes by important French government officials along with panels of international law enforcement agents, public policy advisors, technologists and academic researchers.  Organized around the annual European meeting of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group on Oct. 24-27, the multi-organizational gathering will be held in conjunction with the London Action Plan’s 7th Joint LAP-CNSA Workshop with the goal of enhancing private-public cooperation in the fight against spam, malware and other online threats.

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“This is the perfect venue for top cybersecurity experts from around the world to share information and tackle the cutting-edge issues affecting online users.  The dialogue generated at this meeting will improve our understanding of each others’ technical and policy concerns and allow us to work more closely in shutting down international cybercrime,” said Betsy Broder, LAP meeting chair and counsel for international consumer protection at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.  LAP is a coalition of public and private entities from 27 countries cooperating on international online law enforcement.

A keynote panel during the four-day meeting will provide an update on cyber-protection efforts by the French government.  The session will feature Eric Freyssinet, Head of the Cybercrime Division, French Police Force; Gilles Babinet, President, Conseil National du Numerique (National Council of Digital Matters); and other senior officials.

A second keynote by Ethan Zuckerman, director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and co-founder of Global Voices - an organization that promotes citizen journalism - will address the challenges of balancing corporate legalities with human rights.  Zuckerman also helped start Geekcorps, a nonprofit that sends technologists to teach online communications in developing countries.

More than 300 security professionals from Asia, Europe and North America are expected.  Other joint sessions, which will include both LAP and the EU Contact Network of Spam Authorities, will focus on mobile security and enforcement, private-public cooperation, updates on the EU electronic communications framework, technical issues such as the IPv6 transition, and rapid domain takedowns.  

MAAWG Chairman Michael O’Reirdan said, “With the variety of expertise in the participating organizations, we will be addressing a number of sensitive and important topics that will directly impact the online security community.  Global cooperation is key to challenging malware and online threats.”

The 23rd MAAWG General Meeting opens Oct. 24 with a full-day of training with courses on spamtraps, malware analysis and a joint MAAWG/LAP/EU CNSA training session summarizing recent law enforcement actions against cybercriminals.  MAAWG presentations over the week will cover the TDL4 bot and mobile bot takedowns, assisting users who have been infected with malware, IPv6 and rDNS, along with other topics and members-only document review and committee working sessions.

LAP and the EU CNSA will meet separately with the OCED’s Committee on Consumer Policy to discuss the 2006 spam enforcement cooperation recommendations.  They will also explore synergies with the EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) network with a workshop on Oct. 27 at the UK Office of Fair Trade.  

About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)

The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents more than one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, includingtechnology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. It also works to educate global policy makers on the technical and operational issues related to online abuse and messaging. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an open forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.

Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, LMarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications

MAAWG Board of Directors: AT&T (NYSE: T); Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA); Cox Communications; Facebook; France Telecom (NYSE and Euronext: FTE); PayPal; Return Path; Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.

MAAWG Full Members: 1&1 Internet AG; Adaptive Mobile Security LTD; Apple Inc.; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); Dynamic Network Services Inc.; e-Dialog; Eloqua; Email Sender and Provider Coalition; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; iContact; Internet Initiative Japan, (IIJ NASDAQ: IIJI); McAfee Inc.; Message Systems; Mimecast; Nominum, Inc.; NWEB SRL; Proofpoint (everyone.net); Scality; Spamhaus; Sprint; Symantec; and Trend Micro, Inc.

A complete member list is available at www.maawg.org/about/roster.

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