TechNet, Audit Firms Team Up On Cybersecurity Best Practices

TechNet, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based group of more 200 CEOs and senior high-tech executives, this week said it is teaming with four major audit firms to define best practices on cybersecurity for senior managers. TechNet will work with Deloitte & Touche LLP, Ernst & Young International, KPMG International and PricewaterhouseCoopers to develop guidelines designed to help senior executives evaluate their companies’ levels of security preparedness. The Cyber Security Practices Adoption Campaign being prepared by TechNet is designed to create awareness of business survivability issues, risk assessment and mitigation strategies as well as contingency planning, according to Rick White, president of TechNet. “We are trying to put together some processes so that any company can figure out where they stand” from a security perspective, White said at a news conference at the RSA Conference here this week. This kind of private-sector initiative is precisely what is needed to promote better security practices, said Howard Schmidt, chairman of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. “It was exactly what we had in mind when we created the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace,” he said. Organizations are asking for just this sort of help, Schmidt said. As a result “we are seeing more groups start to come together to share best practices.” TechNet will model its recommendations on similar guidelines drafted last year by the Internet Security Alliance (ISAlliance), said John Shaughnessy, vice chairman of the Arlington, Va.-based ISAlliance and a vice president at Visa U.S.A. Inc. Full Story