Federal Tech News... [SecurityOrb.com]

Experts tackle guidance to stop cyber attacks

A group of information security analysts in government and industry plans to publish guidance in six months to identify the most effective protections against the vulnerabilities most often exploited in cyber attacks, according to John Gilligan, president of the Gilligan Group and former chief information officer of the Air Force and Energy Department. He leads the effort.

The ultimate goal of the organization, which has not yet been named, is to get the Office of Management and Budget to revise its security guidance and for agencies to incorporate those guidelines, Gilligan said Nov. 21 at a security conference sponsored by 1105 Government Information Group, which publishes Federal Computer Week.

Source: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/154505-1.html?topic=security


The Trusted Internet Connection

The Trusted Internet Connection initiative (also known as TIC, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-08-05) is mandated in an OMB Memorandum issued in November of 2007. The memorandum was meant to optimize individual external connections, including internet points of presence currently in use by the Federal government of the United States. It includes a program for improving the federal government’s incident response capability through a centralized gateway monitoring at a select group of TIC Access Providers (TICAP).[1]

The initial goal for total number of federal external connections and internet points of presence was 50.[2]

National Cyber Security Initiative will have a dozen parts

President Bush's largely classified governmentwide cybersecurity initiative will have a dozen components designed to better protect computer networks and systems, and to improve information technology processes and policies, a Homeland Security Department official said on Thursday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 — more commonly known as the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative — in January, but few details have been made public. Work already is underway on some of the initiative's 12 components, said Steven Chabinsky, deputy director of the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force, during a panel discussion at the Symantec Government Symposium.