New DHS cyber alert system under fire

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- The leaders of the security-information-sharing organizations within some of the nation's critical-infrastructure sectors are criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for announcing a new cyber alert system without better framing the role of the private sector.
In interviews with Computerworld, senior officials from the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC) within the IT and financial services industries said they learned of the new DHS National Cyber Alert System from media reports that appeared shortly after the announcement was made yesterday (see story). More important, the officials said they still have little or no idea what, if any, new capabilities the alert system offers, what is expected of the ISACs or how the private sector is supposed to integrate and coordinate with the DHS on the alerts.
"The government wanted to know how it could get [security information] to everybody, but it didn't ask us how we could do that," said Pete Allor, operations director for the IT sector's ISAC. "At least you got a conference call," he said, referring to the media briefing hosted by the DHS.
During that briefing, Amit Yoran, director of the DHS's National Cyber Security Division, told reporters that the new alert system "will integrate very closely with ISAC functions, [and alerts] will be provided to the ISACS and in many cases coordinated with the ISACS in advance." That integration will be made possible by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), he said.
That was news to Suzanne Gorman, chair of the financial services sector's ISAC, who said she and others were never briefed on what capabilities the US-CERT operation provides.
"We talk about partnerships, but it would have been really nice if they had a conversation with us ahead of making this announcement," said Gorman. "The way they did this was poor, to say the least."
Yoran, in response to those concerns, said the DHS did in fact conduct discussions with the various ISACs on what the department could do to increase awareness -- and he said that level of interaction will increase as the system matures.
However, Yoran said, the goal of the new system is to give "all users of cyberspace the information they need to protect themselves." He noted that the DHS alert system doesn't provide any sector-specific information. Instead, it offers a national-level view, which "even all of the ISACS don't cover," he said.
Despite the agency''s characterization of the new system as "a fundamental building block of the public/private partnership," both Allor and Gorman said the initiativeseems to be geared more toward home users and the small business community than toward the medium-size and large companies that make up the bulk of the nation's critical infrastructure.
From a critical-infrastructure-protection perspective, "I'm not clear on how this is going to work," said Gorman. "There seems to be a lot of duplication of effort.
Allor also questioned the effectiveness of using e-mail alerts to notify home and small business users of security issues -- a key issue that the DHS should have discussed with the private sector, he said.
"Who are we trying to alert, for what, and what's the best method to get to them?" said Allor. It's not clear that e-mail alerts will be as timely for these users as they are for large enterprise users, he said.