Enhancing Cyber Defense With Collaborative Threat Information Sharing

Earlier this month, a series of worms--the first of which was named Zotob--took down a significant number of Windows 2000 PCs around the world. Microsoft issued a patch and said there was no threat to Windows XP systems unless the attacker had valid log-on credentials. About two weeks later, Microsoft discovered that wasn't the case, and said the same vulnerability that Zotob used to victimize Windows 2000 systems also existed on some Windows XP systems.

It's enough to make any IT department go mad. So several Philadelphia-area businesses and organizations are testing out a new model called the Cyber Incident Detection & Data Analysis Center, which lets private-sector entities anonymously share cyberthreat and attack data with their peers. CIDDAC's plan is to help keep members up to date about the latest threats and provide them with trend-analysis information about specific intrusion activity that they can use to assess risks to their own networks. It also expects to link the service with government agencies such as the Homeland Security Department and the FBI, providing them with anonymous information that could be used in the fight against cybercrime.

Similar programs exist, but they haven't solved the problem of companies being reluctant to report security breaches (see box). The service most closely resembles the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, although that service has no direct link with federal law enforcement. There's also the Software Engineering Institute's CERT Coordination Center, a federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon University.

The link for this article located at Security Pipeline is no longer available.