Washington: Amid increased cyber threats from overseas, US President Barack Obama is set to put in place measures aimed at encouraging and promoting sharing of cyber security threat information.
Obama will sign an executive order aimed at encouraging and promoting sharing of cyber security threat information within the private sector and between the private sector and government.
To be signed during the White House Cyber Security Summit at the Stanford University in California, the executive order would lay out a framework for expanded information sharing designed to help companies work together and work with the federal government to quickly identify and protect against cyber threats.
Though CEOs from Google, Yahoo and Facebook have declined to attend the summit, the Apple CEO Tim Cook will address the meeting during which he will announce his intent to fold the government's cyber security recommendations into its own cyber strategy.
Several other companies would be making their own announcements.
Intel is releasing a paper on its use of the Framework and requiring all of its vendors to use the Framework by contract, while Bank of America will announce that it is using the Framework and will also require it of its vendors.
The Cyber Threat Alliance (including Palo Alto Networks and Symantec, Intel Security, and Fortinet) will announce that its new cyber threat sharing partnership is starting to build best practices and standards consistent with the new information sharing Executive Order.
While the Entertainment Software Association would announce the creation of a new information sharing and analysis organisation that will be built consistent with the new information sharing Executive Order, Crowdstrike would announcing that it will form an information sharing and analysis organisation.
Box is announcing that it will participate in the standards-development process for ISAOs, and that it will explore ways to use the Box platform to enhance collaboration among ISAOs.
FireEye is launching its "Information Sharing Framework" which allows FireEye customers to receive threat intelligence in near-real-time and provides anonymised threat indicators.
Several organidations including Visa and Mastercard will announce new commitments to promote more secure payment technologies.
Visa is committing to tokenisation - substituting credit card numbers with randomly generated tokens for each transaction -- by the end of the 1st quarter of 2015.
MasterCard will invest more than USD 20 million in new cybersecurity tools, including the deployment of Safety Net, a new security solution that will reduce the risk of large-scale cyber-attacks.
Apple, Visa, MasterCard, Comerica Bank and US Bank are committed to working together to make ApplePay, a tokenised, encrypted service, available for users of federal payment cards, including DirectExpress and GSA SmartPay cards.
Square is working with the Small Business Administration to roll out an education programme aimed at convincing small business to adopt more secure payment technologies.
The Financial Services Roundtable and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, on behalf of a partnership of 19 associations, will jointly announce today the release of two papers to enhance collaboration in the development of technology standards and principles for the development of next generation technologies that minimise the value of payments information if it is stolen or lost.
Intel is set to release a new authentication technology that will not rely on a password, but will instead employ other technologies, such as biometrics.
American Express is announcing rollout of new multi- factor authentication technologies for their consumers.
MasterCard, in partnership with First Tech Credit Union, will announce that they will implement a new pilot later this year that will allow consumers to authenticate and verify their transactions using a combination of unique biometrics such as facial and voice recognition.
A number of leaders in the financial services industry will be making credit scores more readily available to all Americans, improving consumers' awareness of credit health, and providing them a tool to identify major shifts in their credit score a key first sign of identity theft.
