Security info center gets $2 million

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/1208/web-fsisac-12-10-03.asp

By Diane Frank 
Dec. 10, 2003 

The Treasury Department on Tuesday signed a $2 million one-time
contract to upgrade the Financial Services Information Sharing and
Analysis Center (FS/ISAC), which serves as the central point for the
sector's critical infrastructure warnings.

The center is one of many that industries and their government
liaisons formed since 1998 to share vulnerability information and
alerts when incidents occur that affect critical infrastructure, such
as telecommunications and banking. The FS/ISAC was one of the first to
be formed and experts have often held it up as an example for other
sectors.

Money from Treasury will allow the center to expand to serve the
entire financial industry, department officials said.

The $2 million is to be used specifically for upgrading the center. By
the end of fiscal 2005, officials expect that the center will be
funded entirely by membership fees, which range from $750 to $50,000
per year.

Upgrades include:

* Enhancing the network so it can serve more than 30,000 institutions
  in the financial sector — including banks, exchanges, insurance
  companies and others -- in addition to the current core group.

* Providing a secure, confidential forum for real-time information
  sharing.

* Adding data about physical threats to the cyberthreat information
  that the center handles.

* Including a Web-based warnings and alerts service, with a backup
  system in case the Internet itself is affected.

* Setting more than 16 performance metrics to determine the center's
  effectiveness and help assess the state of information sharing
  across the industry.

The Bush administration wants to use industry ISACs as the primary
means for sharing information between government and the private
sector, Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure
protection at the Homeland Security Department, said last week at the
National Cyber Security Summit in Santa Clara, Calif.



-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email majordomo () attrition org with 'unsubscribe isn'
in the BODY of the mail.