NIST's new cyber center ready for public-private insight

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has opened the doors to a brand-new cybersecurity center of excellence to bring together experts from different sectors to create, test and implement cybersecurity solutions and promote their adoption.

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence will be a hub where NIST researchers work with users and vendors from government, industry and academia on holistic cybersecurity approaches, Donna Dodson, chief of NIST's Computer Security Division and acting director of the new center, wrote in a June 29 post on the Commerce Department’s blog.

“By providing a test bed where new ideas and technologies can be tried out before being deployed, the center provides the opportunity to thoroughly document and share each solution, supporting specific industry sector business challenges,” Dodson wrote. “This will encourage the rapid adoption of comprehensive cybersecurity templates and approaches that support automated and trustworthy e-government and e-commerce.”

The center’s has three goals it hopes to achieve: increase trust in U.S. IT communications, data and storage systems; decrease the risk for users of IT systems; and foster the creation of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.

Multiple public-private sector teams will utilize “use cases” to zero in on objectives and create opportunities for collaborative leadership among technology and business sectors. The first use case will focus on health IT, and future ones will be chosen through workshops and input from different stakeholders and citizens’ feedback.