Group Promotes Industrywide Security Management

Compiled ByTraci Purdum In an effort to help businesses integrate physical and cyber security, several companies have collaborated to form the Open Security Exchange. The Open Security Exchange defines best practices and promotes vendor-neutral specifications for integrating the management of security devices and policies across the enterprise. The group will enable organizations to significantly reduce both their exposure to a diverse range of threats and their total operation costs, say the exchange's founding members Computer Associates International Inc., Gemplus, HID Corp. and Tyco Fire & Security's Software House. "Most corporate security managers wouldn't dream of having separate security systems for their Windows and UNIX servers. Yet they often have no linkage between their building security systems and their cyber security systems," says Russell M. Artzt, executive vice president of CA's eTrust security brand. "The Open Security Exchange is committed to remedying this situation by delivering an interoperability specification to support the effective integration of these diverse areas of security management."