04 July 2008

Big Five IT Vendors Announce Focus on Security

John Sterlicchi

Five of the world’s leading IT vendors have announced the creation of the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI).

Founded by Cisco, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, and Microsoft, ICASI says it provides a 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.

It says its commitment to advance Internet security includes changing how vendors work together on multi-product security fixes.

The move was welcomed by Charlotte Dunlap, senior information security analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, who told Infosecurity:

“There's a great need for better collaboration between industry leaders as a way to combat mounting Internet threats coming from more sophisticated criminals and targeted attacks.

“Hopefully, these security providers can put their competitive differences aside and share meaningful information with each other.

Dunlap also said she would like to see ICASI broaden its membership to include channel players and enterprise customers who could “contribute real-world experience and input.''

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 says it 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.