Data security issues dominate CeBIT in Germany (Roundup)

Mar 2, 2010, 18:20 GMT

Hanover, Germany - Data security issues dominated the CeBIT trade fair, which began a five-day run in Germany Tuesday with its main focus on business software to run banks, laboratories, warehouses and other enterprises.

Anti-virus company Symantec warned that malware - software designed to cause damage - was now mounting 8 million attacks daily against internet users, while 13,000 new websites went online every day with spyware waiting to catch out visitors.

Ilias Chantzos, a Symantec executive, said, 'The numbers keep rising all the time.' These days hackers, were even trying to interfere with municipal traffic lights, he warned. Symantec makes Norton anti-virus software.

Web search firm Google defended itself against allegations by German politicians that photographs of homes and offices might assist burglars and snoopers.

It said its Street View service, part of Google Maps and showing panorama images of 19 nations already, was legal under German law and would show German road frontages by the end of this year.

On the same day, German exhibitors were shaken by a court ruling that current police access to phone company call records is too lax.

Phone companies said at the fair they faced vast expense if they had to retain data on the times and destinations of phone calls with even tighter security, as the German constitutional court demanded. They demanded the German government pay the added cost.

European Union law requires phone companies to keep logs in case they are needed for anti-terrorism and serious crime inquiries.

CeBIT, which runs from Tuesday to Saturday, has about 4,150 exhibitors attending this year, only half as many as it had at its peak nine years ago.

This time round many pavilions are empty and consumer-electronics products are rare at the event, which focusses on corporate buyers.

A remote pavilion one was handed over for performances by up-and- coming German rock bands in the faint hope that data providers might be in the market to buy some new music.

But attendance was thin at the section, which was code-named Sounds and was begun this year to bring some buzz back to CeBIT. Even with the rain outside driving afternoon visitors indoors, a punk rock quartet, Amplify, had only a few dozen youthful listeners for its ear-splitting repertoire.

At the fair, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero hailed the digital economy as his country's future. He joined Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for a three-hour tour of booths run by their nations' top information technology companies.

Spain is guest of honour at this year's CeBIT, where companies and governments from round the world endeavour to win export deals.