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IT Industry Consortium Forms to Fight Cyber-Crime

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.

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