[ISN] Feds Making Plans for Security Clearinghouse

[InfoSec News]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1572951,00.asp

By Dennis Fisher 
April 25, 2004   

The federal government is developing plans for a secure network 
operations center for all security information flowing to and from the 
government.

The security operations center would be separate from other such 
facilities at federal agencies and would not necessarily be concerned 
with monitoring the operations of production government networks. 
Instead, the SOC would be a clearinghouse that gathers and analyzes 
data from the private sector, mainly the Information Sharing and 
Analysis Centers in several major vertical industries.

The new facility will likely be located in northern Virginia, 
according to sources familiar with the plans. The plans are part of 
the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to engage the private 
sector more fully in the process of defending the nation's critical 
infrastructure. This is a key concern for the department because the 
lion's share of the infrastructure is owned privately; the government 
must rely on ISPs, carriers and large enterprises for help in securing 
it.

The SOC would be run jointly by personnel from the DHS and a civilian 
contractor that would help build the facility. The physical location 
of the SOC will probably be in a government-owned building, said 
sources close to the plan. DHS officials said that even though there 
are less formal information-sharing efforts between government and 
private industry, there still is a need for a more structured program.

"We're trying to operationalize the public/private partnership. It's 
been largely intangible up till now," said Amit Yoran, director of the 
National Cyber Security Division at DHS, in an interview here last 
week. "We want the rules of the road to be clear on this stuff. The 
private sector genuinely wants to make progress on this. I think, as 
we get more considerate of the private sector in terms of the FOIA 
[Freedom of Information Act] exemption, things will come along."

One of the carrots the government has used to entice enterprises into 
sharing more data on attacks, vulnerabilities and other security 
concerns is an exemption to the FOIA for information pertaining to 
critical infrastructure protection. This exemption guarantees that 
data the companies turn over won't be subject to FOIA requests by news 
organizations.

The FOIA exemption for security information is a key part of the 
government's plans going forward. In the past, most enterprises and 
other organizations have been reluctant to hand over information about 
security breaches, virus attacks or other incidents they've been 
involved with for fear that word might leak to the press and erode 
customer confidence in their business. Yoran and other government 
officials said they hope that the FOIA protection will allay these 
fears and produce more valuable data.

Still, skepticism remains over the government's efforts in general and 
the plans for the SOC specifically. Relations between some of the 
ISACs and the DHS, based in Washington, and other agencies have been 
strained at times, and some security experts involved with the ISACs 
said there's not much reason to think the establishment of the SOC 
will affect any of that.

"The information flows one way right now: from us to them. I don't see 
how this is going to change that," said one member of the Financial 
Services ISAC who requested anonymity. "You want to replace one thing 
that doesn't really work with another one? Whatever. I can't think of 
a single time that they've known about something before we did. The 
only real value is for them."

The ISACs, which were first built in 2000, are designed to allow 
organizations in industries such as health care, financial services 
and IT to exchange information about ongoing security issues. Most are 
run independently, although some, including the FS-ISAC, are run by 
contractors.

Officials said they hope to have plans for the SOC finalized soon and 
intend to fund the initiative out of the current fiscal year's budget, 
which runs out Sept. 30.