If you’re worried about computer security, you should know…

Are you protected?

Do you use a computer?  Are you ever connected to the Internet?  Is your organization aware of the myriad computer threats?

Twenty years ago, if you answered yes to any of these questions, you would have been in the minority. Today, we’re all “connected” and assume our organizations are watching out for us.

At work, our organizations are responsible for ensuring we’re protected from a variety of threats, external and internal. There are a significant number of policies and standards that provide guidance to ensure there is no weakest link. Staying abreast of the latest policy changes and their impact on your organizational operations can seem daunting. Enter the Information Assurance (IA) Technology Analysis Center (IATAC).

Since its inception in 1998, IATAC has been a Department of Defense (DOD) central point of access for information on Information Assurance, Cyber Security, Defensive Information Operations, and Defensive Information Warfare. IATAC also provides assistance and expertise in emerging technologies in system vulnerabilities, research and development, models, and analysis to support the development and implementation of effective defense against Information Warfare attacks.

What does this mean to you? It means IATAC has been constantly building a knowledge base in hundreds of IA topic areas to assist organizations with their IA challenges; to help organizations counter threats before they become headlines; and if events do occur, provide a solid foundation to help organizations respond.

Two high profile examples of items that are top areas of concern today:

Two years ago, IATAC authored a comprehensive State-of-the-Art Report (SOAR) on the insider threat as it pertains to information technology systems. It discusses the different policy, technical, and procedural approaches being applied by government, industry, and academia to address the threat and describes ongoing research meant to further our ability to limit or prevent insider attack;

Within the last six months, IATAC authored another SOAR entitled: Security Risk Management for the Off-the-Shelf Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain.  This SOAR discusses threats to the supply chain and threats from a compromised supply chain as well as current and emerging countermeasure approaches and mitigations to vulnerabilities of those threats.

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Can IATAC help? Absolutely. IATAC provides assistance to organizations and individuals, hundreds of times each year.

Organizations can visit IATAC’s website at http://iac.dtic.mil/iatac and take full advantage of their centralized knowledge repository, resources and tools dedicated to IA and IA related subject areas.

The Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC) is one of ten Information Analysis Centers (IACs) established by DoD and managed by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). IATAC is the DOD Center of Excellence responsible for acquiring, archiving, analyzing, synthesizing, and disseminating scientific and technical information related to information assurance and provides unbiased analysis to assist specific customers.

This article was sponsored by Police Technology.