SAN DIEGO -- Companies, consumers and governments all take steps to ensure their computer data stays safe, but no one has ever collaborated on cyber security until now.

Experts said cyber attacks increased 20 percent in 2009 to more than 55,000, and that is just the number the Department of Defense knows about.

The problem of cyber security is what brought law enforcement, educators, government officials, businesses and Internet security professionals together for the first time in San Diego on Wednesday.

"Everything is wired to the Internet. We're all wired to each other, and that means threats exist across all those domains," said Darin Andersen of San Diego-based ESET Security Software.

The idea of the collaboration is to share concerns and come up with solutions.

One example of what the collaborative effort hopes to solve is what occurred with last year's Conficker virus. An unchecked program or e-mail attachment led to more than 10 million infected and out of service computers.

"Not only is it our problem, but it's our customer's problem and you know it's a problem extended into our home lives as well our children, our families, all of it," said Kanitah Sar of Science Applications International Corporation.

"How we can create a city that is safe … because at the end of the day, it's our weakest link we need to secure in order for all of us to be secure," said Andersen. "We are under a cyber attack virtually every day."

The group's goal was to take the first step to make all cities more cyber aware.