October IT Security Automation Conference to Highlight Healthcare IT, Cloud Computing

The Fifth Annual IT Security Automation Conference, co-hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will focus on emerging technologies designed to support the security automation needs of multiple sectors. The conference will be held Oct. 26-29 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

This year's expanded conference includes several new conference tracks on the use of security automation in support of healthcare IT/Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); how security automation tools and technologies can ease the technical burdens of policy compliance; and how the rapidly evolving cloud computing sector can integrate security automation to achieve significant benefits. The first and last days are devoted to tutorials and workshops for novices and experts.

This conference with workshops and an expo presents projects and integration efforts that facilitate the automation and standardization of computer vulnerability management, security measurement and compliance checking. In the past, these common challenges have been complicated by multiple proprietary methodologies and technologies that make it difficult to collect, correlate, remediate and report on mission-critical systems and data. Security automation reduces the complexity and time necessary to manage these functions, creating a secure and trusted computing environment that frees up resources to focus on other areas of the IT infrastructure.

The conference is co-hosted by NIST, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The four agencies are actively involved in work to automate computer security.

The IT Security Automation Conference is geared toward public and private sector senior executives, security managers and staff, information technology professionals and developers of products and services. Additional conference tracks include:

• Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) Implementation,
• SCAP Technical Challenges,
• Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA),
• Department of Defense (DoD) Infrastructure Strategy, Vulnerability Identification and Remediation Architecture, and
• Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).

Tutorial and workshops on DoC, DoD and DHS technologies and initiatives will be offered, such as:

• Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC),
• Emerging Standards and Specifications,
• SCAP Validated Tools,
• Content Validation, and
• Case Studies.
   

Online registration is available at http://scap.nist.gov/events, and there is a $100 early registration discount available until Oct. 5. Reporters interested in attending should contact Evelyn Brown (301) 975-5661.