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by Chris Hoover, RSA Archer GRC Solutions This has been a cool and exciting week in the RSA Archer Federal world. I made a couple trips to the National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST) this week. In terms of federal IA standards, NIST is obviously critical, and RSA Archer has taken the next step to build our relationship with them. NIST is an existing RSA Archer customer and we are core partners in their National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) lab. One of the main missions of this lab is to bring different types of vendors together in a collaborative way, with NIST moderating, to innovate and solve security problems. They call this effort the National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnership (NCEP). In a precursor as a test run of the NCEP idea, RSA Archer recently collaborated with the NCCoE lab staff to design a trusted geo-location solution and co-author a paper on the subject. April 15th marked the official beginning of the NCEP and there was an official signing ceremony of the 11 “founding” members to kick it off. It was a great event. From the moment I walked into the lobby, I noticed NIST had set up a demo of the geo-location solution (score!) and Archer was there on the screen as an example of what the NCEP could do. Some black limos and secret service members showed up, escorting General Alexander (Director of NSA and Commander of US Cyber Command) and Senator Mikulski, who fought for the funding for the lab. The ceremony began. The Director of NIST, Dr. Gallagher, was the Master of Ceremony. See the NIST coverage of the event here. Then the 11 partners went up on stage to sign the agreement. Rear Admiral Mike Brown, the VP for RSA Federal Business, was on hand to sign for RSA. The line-up was impressive: execs from Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Symantec, McAfee, etc. – all top-tier partners. Overall, the signing was very positive and inspiring. I went back to the NCCoE on April 17th for the kickoff of the next use case: Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information Demonstration Project . A group of about 15-20 vendors showed up, including most of the 11 core partners. We all listened to the use case around secure wireless healthcare data and we each briefly presented on how we thought our products might fit into the solution. The NCCoE lab staff are now discussing how to split all of the proposed products into several prototype solutions and we will hear back on our “teams” shortly. The NCCoE also announced the areas around the next two use cases for the lab: financial and energy. This is really no surprise, due to the recent resurgence in concern over critical infrastructure, but I am very excited! These are great areas for RSA Archer historically and great opportunities to improve and innovate! Chris Hoover, CISSP, CISA brings deep Information Assurance and Risk Management expertise to RSA Archer. Mr. Hoover is responsible for applying his federal experience to product design and strategy of RSA Archer’s Federal GRC solutions. Prior to joining RSA Archer, Chris spent much of his career helping federal agencies architect effective Information Assurance and Risk Management programs. |
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