As part of a continuing effort to find a way to handle sensitive security vulnerabilities, government security officials have been discussing the possibility of creating a central point of contact within the government for reporting such information.

Under the scenario officials have discussed, researchers who find a new vulnerability would be encouraged to send their findings to the government contact at the same time that they notify the affected vendor, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The benefits of such a system are two-fold, experts say. Not only would it ensure that the researcher is given proper credit for his findings, but it would also serve as a fall-back position should the vendors affected by the vulnerability fail to acknowledge the report or take any action to fix it.

Many security researchers have been critical of large software vendors such as Microsoft Corp. and others for what the researchers perceive as unreasonably slow reaction times once they are told of a new vulnerability. This, in part, has led some researchers to begin posting their findings on public mailing lists or Web sites in an effort to pressure the vendors into patching the vulnerabilities.

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