News
IT Industry Consortium Forms to Fight Cyber-Crime
- By Scott Bekker
- January 16, 2001
In response to the increasing number of cyberattacks over
the last year or so, nineteen of the leading U.S. IT companies are joining
forces with the formation of a new Information Technology Sharing and Analysis
Center (IT-ISAC). Some of the founding members include AT&T, Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard
Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Nortel Networks, and Symantec Corp.
Together, the companies will cooperate on security issues,
sharing threat and vulnerability information with each other in their fight
against security breaches. According to the IT-ISAC, the end goal is to enhance
the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of networked information
systems.
A not-for-profit corporation, the IT-ISAC will enable the
members to report and exchange information concerning electronic incidents,
threats, attacks, vulnerabilities, solutions, best security practices, and
countermeasures.
The formation of the IT-ISAC comes on the heels of a string
of attacks last February on Internet companies. IT companies have not gone
unscathed either, evidenced by the attack on Microsoft’s network last October.
Although there has been an increased amount of security
measures, hackers have continued to be successful in penetrating networks. In
fact, a study by the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) and
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fortune 1000 companies sustained losses of more than
$45 billion in 1999 due to hacks to their systems. – Jim Martin
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.