Intel Corporation News

Leading IT Vendors Establish Forum to Drive Global Security Response Excellence and Innovation

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 26 PRNewswire — Today, five leading information technology (IT) vendors announced the creation of the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI), a nonprofit organization that will enhance global IT security by proactively driving excellence and innovation in security response. Founded by Cisco, International Business Machines, Intel Corporation, Juniper Networks, and Microsoft Corp., ICASI provides a unique forum for global companies committed to proactively addressing complex, multi-product security threats and to better protecting enterprises, governments and citizens, as well as the critical IT infrastructures that support them.

During the last few years, common Internet security threats have evolved from wide-reaching worms and viruses to more sophisticated, stealth attacks that may begin to simultaneously target multiple products or shared protocols in multiple products. ICASI will allow IT vendors to work together to address multi-vendor security threats. The consortium will provide a mechanism for international vendor and customer involvement, and allow for a government-neutral way of resolving significant global, multi-product security incidents.

The increasing sophistication of attacks and the integration of applications, now common in IT environments, pose real challenges for IT vendors. Online attacks occur more frequently and in more rapid succession, while often spanning international boundaries. To date there has not been a trusted vendor environment that allows companies to identify, assess, and mitigate multi-product, global security challenges together on the customers' behalf. ICASI aims to fill this void.

ICASI does not seek to respond to every product security issue that emerges, but rather the consortium is designed to respond to and ideally reduce the potential customer impact of global, multi-vendor cyber threats. The organization is organized around four guiding principles.

— Customer security - Through ICASI's collaboration and leadership, IT vendors will be better able to identify and resolve multi-vendor security threats quickly, thereby helping to reduce the security threat impact and improve customer security.

— Agility and effectiveness - ICASI is committed to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of multi-vendor threat resolution and security response practices.

— Collaboration and trust - ICASI creates a unique environment where information, necessary to quickly solve security-related threats, can be shared, as appropriate.

— Leadership and innovation - ICASI includes leading IT companies from around the world and leverages their expertise to innovate security response excellence, which it shares with the industry.

ICASI's commitment to advance Internet security includes changing how vendors work together on multi-product security fixes. Developing and sharing innovations for preventing and mitigating security challenges is also a core focus for ICASI members.

As cyber security challenges change, ICASI members seek to work with other leading firms that have a sustained commitment to advancing security response and engineering excellence to mitigate multi-product, international security incidents.

ICASI Member Quotes:

Cisco

"At Cisco we are always looking for new ways to enhance how we help our customers protect their organizations. By working with this large ecosystem of security companies, we are confident that ICASI will promulgate more responsive and comprehensive processes and best practices that enhance the global security landscape and ultimately will better protect how our customers live, work and play."

- David Goddard, Vice President for Security Assurance, Cisco

International Business Machines

"It is important for IBM to collaborate with some of the top technology companies to try to increase the security protections for both IBM's clients and ourselves internally. This is why IBM supports ICASI with 100 percent enthusiasm. We're passionate about providing sustainable businesses for our clients and we recognize the need to collaborate with the world's security leaders to do that successfully. During the last few years, common Internet security threats have evolved from wide-reaching worms and viruses to more targeted, stealth attacks specifically for theft of work and personal data. By supporting ICASI, IBM provides not only an aggressive, proactive and preventative approach to security, but we also have a defined defensive strategy in place in the event of the most unthinkable security breaches."

- Linda Betz, Director, IT Policy and Information Security, International Business Machines

Intel Corporation

"It is critical that the technology industry strengthen its ability to combat the ever-changing nature of the global cyber threat landscape. ICASI is an ideal opportunity for a trusted dialogue within the vendor community to affect a positive change in cyber security and response. Intel's involvement in ICASI reinforces our commitment to ensuring the security of computing environments and rapid response to security events globally."

- Malcolm Harkins, General Manager, Information Risk and Security, Intel

Juniper Networks

"Juniper has long recognized the need for a trust-based collaborative means within which we could operate in the event of multi-vendor network security vulnerabilities. As the security threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly and becomes increasingly sophisticated, our customers rely on us to create a responsive and trusted environment that detects and mitigates threats. Embarking on ICASI is another step in our commitment to deliver high-performance networking and world-class security for our customers."

- Michael Frendo, Senior Vice President, High-End Security Systems, Juniper Networks

Microsoft Corp.

"The Internet has transformed the way many of us live. Social networking represents the new town square; blogging has turned citizens into journalists; and e-commerce sites have spurred global competition in the marketplace. But as the Internet has become more integral to our daily lives, many people believe that issues associated with online security and privacy are at unacceptable levels. To truly improve online security and privacy, the industry must come together through dialogue, collaboration and consensus, and we believe ICASI represents a crucial step in that direction."

- George Stathakopoulos, General Manager, Product Security, Microsoft Corp.

SOURCE ICASI

Send this news item to a friend.

Print This Page