New Guidelines to Help Protect Against Cyberattacks

[Rodney Petersen <rpetersen () EDUCAUSE EDU>]

NIST has announced new guidelines for federal agencies.  A ComputerWorld
article about the guidelines is available at
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,75490,00.html

One of the questions from the National Strategy asks:  Should
Institutions of Higher Education adopt the NIST Information Technology
Security Assessment Framework
(http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-26/sp800-26.pdf) as a
standard for information system security compliance?  During a workshop
organized by the Security Task Force last week we had a presentation
from NIST followed by a lively discussion about NIST Guidance and its
appropriateness for institutions of higher education.  I am curious if
others find the NIST Guidelines to be useful or appropriate for higher
education.
The message below sent to "Colleagues of NIST" may have been sent to
your president or others on the NIST mailing list.  Therefore, you may
want to be aware of this announcement and the applicability (present or
future) of the Guidelines to your institution.

In response to some criticism at the workshop, NIST officials reminded
workshop participants that Guidelines are initially posted in draft
followed by a period for comments.  Note that NIST is accepting comments
on the proposed guidelines through the end of January 2003.

Rodney Petersen
Security Task Force Coordinator, EDUCAUSE


-----Original Message-----
From: Gayle Swenson [mailto:gayle.swenson () nist gov]
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 3:43 PM
To: Colleagues of NIST
Subject: New Guidelines to Help Protect Against Cyberattacks

For your information, NIST is releasing new guidelines to help protect
against cyberattacks. Federal agencies, the military, and the private
sector should benefit from these NIST procedures.

For more information, see:
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/n02-20.htm

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