GSA outlines FIDNet needs
The General Services Administration this week started working with vendors on a system the Clinton administration envisions will protect federal agencies against network intrusion
The General Services Administration this week started working with vendors
on a system the Clinton administration envisions will protect federal agencies
against network intrusion.
As designated in the president's National Plan for Information Systems Protection,
the Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNet) will coordinate the analysis
of cyberattack information across all civilian agencies.
The FIDNet program team on Wednesday brought together top vendors in the
intrusion detection market to explain what the program needs from industry.
GSA will release a draft request for proposal by the end of May for vendors
to comment on, and the final RFP will come out in October, when fiscal 2001
funding for FIDNet is due from Congress.
FIDNet is intended to provide real-time information analysis and distribution,
but that cannot be done with current technology. Each agency has systems
from different vendors, and none of the systems can work with information
collected from other vendors' sensors.
This has not yet been a problem, but FIDNet is based on the idea of a program
office being able to read and analyze information from intrusion detection
sensors that agencies have placed throughout their networks, said Darwyn
Banks, program manager for FIDNet.
"I can't go forward without this assumption being valid," Banks said.
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