Companies Partner With NIST to Share Cyber Staff

Eleven private organizations on Monday agreed to partner with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to share cybersecurity staff and best practices to help better combat cyber threats.

In a signing ceremony at NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, the 11 organizations agreed to collaborate with federal agencies as part of the new National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnerships program. Companies participating in the signing ceremony were: Intel, Hytrust, McAffee, Cisco, Splunk, RSA, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Vanguard and Venafi.

As part of the agreement, the companies will provide physical infrastructure such as hardware and software components, intellectual knowledge including best practices and lessons learned, and/or physically or logically co-located personnel who will work side-by-side with federal staff.

The partnerships will be established for a three-year period, with renewal subject to the requirements and interests of the company and NIST, according to a Federal Register notice published in October.

The partnership program is part of the NCCoE program, which was established last year in an effort to develop and test security applications for workplace and personal computers.   

The signing ceremony included remarks by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, NIST Director Patrick Gallagher, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.

“As we looked at the world of cyber, we wanted to have a place where we could come together, where we could always protect intellectual property and proprietary interests," Mikulski said, "but where the best talent of the private sector in working with government can protect America."