FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – August 15, 2005 - Courion® Corporation (Company
Profile, Past
Stories, Case
Studies), a leading provider of enterprise provisioning solutions, today announced that its President and CEO, Chris Zannetos, will co-chair the TechNet CEO Cyber Security Task Force. As part of the TechNet Task Force, Zannetos will leverage the resources, experience, and expertise gained in providing security solutions to hundreds of organizations, to work closely with the federal government and other industry groups to recommend ways to protect the nation’s critical technology infrastructures.
In 2003, President Bush released his National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a plan that called for increased industry responsibility to better secure our nation's critical infrastructure. TechNet, the national organization of leading technology and biotechnology CEOs and senior executives, responded to this call to action by assembling a CEO Cyber Security Task Force. Comprised of top technology CEOs in the country, the mission of the Task Force is to promote awareness and best practices in cyber security and support public-private initiatives aimed at protecting America's information infrastructure.
TechNet’s CEO Cyber Security Task Force launched an initiative in 2003 challenging CEOs to assess and improve their company’s security posture. The centerpiece of this effort is the TechNet Corporate Information Security Evaluation for CEOs – an online self-assessment and educational tool to enable CEOs to quickly review their security programs. This evaluation helps CEOs determine whether their company has implemented known best practices, indicate areas of weakness, and, eventually, give them an opportunity to compare their level of preparedness to others in their industry.
TechNet's Corporate Information Security Evaluation for CEOs addresses four key issues in cyber security management: risk management evaluation, people evaluation, processes evaluation and technology evaluation. A business dependency section helps CEOs determine whether their company has a high, medium or low reliance on information technology for business continuity; this in turn, affects the final scoring. There are approximately 80 questions in the evaluation. CEOs should complete it in tandem with their CIO and/or top security officer. These questions allow companies to assess their cyber security program and identify areas of weakness and gaps relative to current best practices. To access the online evaluation tool go to: http://www.technet.org/cybersecurity.
"TechNet is very pleased to announce that Chris Zannetos will co-chair our Cyber Security Task Force," said Lezlee Westine, President and CEO of TechNet. "Chris is one of the preeminent IT security leaders in the nation and brings years of knowledge and expertise to the fight to ensure greater protection of America's information infrastructure. This is a critical job and we look forward to working with Chris to better fortifying this important infrastructure."
"Because 90% of the nation's information infrastructure belongs to the private sector, it is important to our national security that every company reach a baseline of information security,” said Chris Zannetos, president and CEO, Courion. “The job of CEOs and other senior executives includes assessing the risks to information systems and instituting organizational, policy and budgetary mechanisms to mitigate these risks.”
TechNet has created a comprehensive assessment tool that leverages the considerable collective experience of its member companies to assist organizations in protecting their critical corporate assets while maintaining the flexibility to react to changing requirements, opportunities, and threats.
About TechNet's CEO Cyber Security Task Force TechNet's CEO Cyber Security Task Force members represent leading computer networking, hardware, software, and cyber security companies, including Coco Communications, Conexant, Courion, Cranite, Cyber-Ark Software, Guardent, HP, Marimba, Microsoft, Nominum, Netegrity, PalmOne, PGP, Qualys, RSA Security, Symantec, VeriSign, TippingPoint, Tripwire, Visionael, and Wind River Systems, among others. The members have agreed to devote time and resources in targeted initiatives to inform cyber security policymaking, promote best practices in network security, and support public-private efforts to protect the Internet.
About TechNet
TechNet is a national, bipartisan network of CEOs that promotes the growth of technology industries and the economy by building long-term relationships between technology leaders and policymakers and by advocating a targeted policy agenda. TechNet, based in Silicon Valley, has offices in Boston, Austin, Seattle and Orange County (California). See www.technet.org for more information.
About Courion
Courion enables complex organizations to rapidly respond to constant change. Unlike traditional identity and access management technologies, Courion’s Dynamic Community™-based Provisioning empowers organizations to deliver transparent compliance, sustained efficiencies and improved business velocity, by effectively adapting to and leveraging their changing business operations, technology infrastructure and organization. Over 255 enterprise customers worldwide including 60 of the FORTUNE 500 utilize Courion's Enterprise Provisioning Suite™ to securely automate routine, manual processes for user provisioning, password management, industry and regulatory compliance, profile management, and digital certificate management. For more information, contact Courion’s headquarters in Framingham, MA, USA at 508-879-8400 or visit www.courion.com.
Courion is a registered trademark. Dynamic Communities and Enterprise Provisioning Suite are trademarks of Courion Corporation.
email this article