According to a recent industry study, cyber crimes cost the global economy $388 billion annually in both direct financial losses and in lost time dealing with the effects of cyber crime. To help organizations better protect themselves from such threats, NIST within the Commerce Department has established the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and is collaborating with the State of Maryland and Montgomery County in Maryland.
The Center with FY 2012 NIST appropriations will provide $10 million to establish the public-private partnership to operate the center and will work to accelerate the widespread adoption of integrated cybersecurity tools and technologies.
Examples of potential collaborative projects at the Center may include development of interoperable cybersecurity templates to address challenges in health IT, cloud and mobile computing, cryptography, and for the continuous monitoring of IT systems.
The Center will include a state-of-the-art computing facility near NIST headquarters campus in Gaithersburg Maryland where researchers from NIST will work with both the users and vendors of cybersecurity products and services. The plan is to encourage tech transfer by allowing private companies to learn about and apply public sector cybersecurity advances to their own products and applications.
