F-Secure chief claims CISPA act key to stopping cyber criminals

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has been praised by F-Secure's chief researcher officer Mikko Hypponen, who argues it will aid law enforcement in the ongoing war against cyber criminals.

The CISPA legislation is intended to facilitate the sharing of critical threat data between government agencies and private firms, including internet service providers and social networking companies, to help fight online crime.

As such, Hypponen, who has advised numerous law enforcement and government agencies on cyber policy and defence, told V3 CISPA is a move in the right direction.

He explained that the bill is the antithesis of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and will help fight cyber crime.

"It's not at all similar to SOPA and ACTA, it's about catching cyber criminals," he said. "To me it reads like a good bill about fighting cyber crime."

He said those bills had caused so much controversy because they had been championed by right's holders.

"There's one party that's consistently been shouting the loudest for these [SOPA and ACTA] type of bills and that's the entertainment industry," said Hypponen.

"I find funny that an industry that's meant to entertain us is shouting the loudest to restrict our online freedoms."

Hypponen suggested that law enforcement agencies' current focus on catching hacktivists and copyright infringers is distracting it from the more dangerous enemy - cyber criminals.

"I hate mixing cyber criminals with pirates and hacktivists," said Hypponen.

"Worry about the Russian and Ukrainians: we need to catch cyber criminal gangs."

Hypponen's comments come after a spate of recent arrests of youths for involvement in Anonymous led cyber attacks.

Most recently UK police arrested two teenagers suspected of being a part of a recent raid on an MI6 run anti-terrorism hotline, one of the youths is believed to be "Trick" the alleged leader of Team Poison.

CISPA, which has already received support from several high-profile companies including Facebook, has, however, been attacked by numerous consumer advocates, many claiming it is a rehashed version of the SOPA legislation.