The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) announced the Industry Connections Security Group (ICSG), a global effort to pool experience and resources in combating the systematic and rapid rise in computer security threats. AVG Technologies, McAfee Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sophos, Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro are initial members of ICSG.

ICSG is engaging a wide variety of entities—security vendors, industry content contributors (such as banks and Internet service providers), educational institutions and government agencies, among them—in a collaborative forum for advancing the technologies, methodologies and best practices for sharing computer security information. The group will develop, document and promote proposals for enhancing security, toward the goal of producing consensus approaches and perhaps fueling new IEEE standards.

ICSG’s first working group is focused on malware (malicious software such as viruses, worms and spyware). Threats have increased dramatically—from 125,000 unique pieces of malware in 2006 to 1.5 million in 2008 and 1.2 million in the first half of 2009 alone, according to McAfee. ICSG is working to establish more intelligent ways of sharing malware samples and the information associated with them in a way that makes the security industry more effective.

For more information on Industry Connections or the ICSG activity, please visit http://standards.ieee.org/prod-serv/indconn/index.html.

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