IT infrastructure protection group appoints leadership
The Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council, a group charged with protecting IT infrastructure and hardening cybersecurity, has established its charter membership and executive leadership.
Major IT companies, systems integrators and associations form the leadership of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council established last year.
The 33-member council was self-organized as one of 17 sector councils ? representing water, energy, financial services, food, and other areas ? recommended to be established under the Homeland Security Department's draft National Infrastructure Protection Plan base plan.
The IT sector council is headed by a 12-member executive committee and chaired by Guy Copeland, vice president of information infrastructure at Computer Sciences Corp. He also is president emeritus of the IT-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC), and represents the center within the sector council.
Copeland, in a news release issued earlier this month, said the sector council and the IT-ISAC will work together to protect IT infrastructure, with the center focusing on operational security monitoring, response and information-sharing capabilities and the council taking a more strategic focus on developing corporate and management policies to prevent cyber and physical attacks.
Council policies will be vetted by group members and also will be shared with other sector council and with government agencies, the news release said.
"Critical infrastructure, influencing IT infrastructure, is largely owned and operated by the private sector, and it is essential that companies, government agencies and other stakeholders work in true partnership on the best strategies to protect against attack," Copeland said in the release.
The vice chairman of the council is Michael Aisenberg, director of government relations for VeriSign Inc.
Other charter members include Bell Security Solutions Inc.; BellSouth Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Citadel Security Software Inc., Computer Associates International, Entrust Inc., EWA Information & Infrastructure Technologies Inc., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Internet Security Systems Inc., KPMG LLP, Lockheed Martin Corp., McAfee Inc., Microsoft Corp., NTT America, R&H Security Consulting LLC, Seagate Technology LLC, Symantec Corp., Unisys Corp., and Verizon Communications Inc.