October 5, 1999 Web posted at: 2:23 p.m. EDT (1823 GMT) by Nancy Weil

From...

(IDG) -- The U.S. Treasury Department last week opened a center intended to help the financial services industry and the government share information about cyberattacks and threats.

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center was formed following a directive from President Bill Clinton. The directive indicates that the Treasury Department work with the banking and finance sectors to find ways to improve security of information systems, according to a written statement from the department.

The center was officially announced by U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and is being supported by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve Board. A dozen financial services companies say they are interested in participating in the center, according to the statement.

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"When I first joined the Treasury some years ago, I can assure you we were not thinking about threats to the financial system emanating from viruses, Trojan Horses, logic bombs or malicious code," Summers says. "But we are thinking about those things now, and with good reason."

The pervasive use of the Internet by individuals and also by financial institutions has led to new needs when it comes to security, he says. A study last year by the Computer Security Institute found that among companies polled, 64% had information system security breaches, up 16% over 1997, he added. The total financial loss from the breaches rose 36% in a year.

"As damaging as these attacks have been, the vast majority were conducted by disgruntled individuals," Summers says. "We face a future, though, where criminals, terrorists or even nation-states may use the same tools in a more organized way for darker purposes."

Summers says the new center "can play a key role in bolstering the confidence of the American public in the security and stability of our financial system" by enabling the financial industry and the government to share details about cyberattacks and how to quell them.