In a deal involving the new Department of Homeland Security, two companies teamed up to win a multimillion-dollar contract to create a system for patching security flaws in software used by U.S. government agencies. . .

In a deal involving the new Department of Homeland Security, two companies teamed up to win a multimillion-dollar contract to create a system for patching security flaws in software used by U.S. government agencies.

Information-system provider Veridian and security company SecureInfo announced the $10.8 million contract this week. Under the deal, they'll create a Web-based service for the secure dissemination of software patches to network administrators within the federal government. The service, as part of the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, will be managed by the Department of Homeland Security, created by President Bush on Monday.

"FedCIRC has funded (the service) and will provide this tool to the other agencies free of charge," said John Linton, chief operating officer for San Antonio, Texas-based SecureInfo.

The link for this article located at news.com is no longer available.