An official at the Department of Homeland Security recently said that intelligence and law enforcement agencies now approve unclassified versions of cyber threat indicators at a much faster rate, Nextgov reported Wednesday.
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The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 called for the development of procedures that would allow federal agencies to share cyber threat indicators – that is, any information related to any kind of cybersecurity threat – in their possession with other agencies, relevant organizations and even the public.
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This legal mandate gave rise to the DHS’ Automated Indicator Sharing initiative, in which government entities as well as industry partners submit threat indicators to the DHS’ National Cybersecurity and Communications and Integration Center.
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The NCCIC is responsible for preparing and disseminating alerts about the indicators, but when submissions from law enforcement or the intelligence community include classified information, the NCCIC and the source agency must first remove all sensitive components.
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The source agency ultimately has final say when the threat indicator is sufficiently de-classified for public release.
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The entire process takes time, but it has since been shortened due to the maturation of the NCCIC and the increase in cybersecurity threats in recent years, the DHS official noted.