Having been on board at the RH-ISAC for a little over three weeks now, I can tell you a lot of work is being done to continue to break down the barriers that impede information sharing. There are three obstacles that prevent sharing: legal or internal policy constraints, limitations with staff resources and technology.
At the RH-ISAC, our goal is to eliminate these obstacles and help our members engage freely, proactively and simplistically. To that end, I’d like to share three ways we’re working to break down these barriers:
- Technology Roadmap: We’re transitioning to a new, secure and open architecture that will allow increased functionality and the ability to interface with a variety of threat intelligence platforms. This new architecture will also help resource-constrained teams more easily extract and import information with less manual effort.
- Legal/Policy Support: Technology is only one aspect of the puzzle. We still need member engagement to make it happen, and we are working to ease the other obstacles as well. The RH-ISAC is working on providing best practices for legal and internal policies to educate users and, as a result, increase the level of comfort in sharing information.
- Trust: Trust is crucial in sharing. When the RH-ISAC journey began back in 2014, we organized frequent meetings where information security executives within the retail industry could get to know one another. Building those relationships was key to moving forward and creating the RH-ISAC. Those kinds of relationships; knowing the people you’re sharing with vs. seeing names on a screen, continue to be important. That’s why it’s so important that RH-ISAC members and non-members plan to attend our 2017 Retail Cyber Intelligence Summit, scheduled for this October 3-4 in Chicago!
We’re stronger together.
Suzie Squier
Executive Director
