A group of high-powered security experts and industry executives will be in Washington Wednesday, testifying before a Congressional committee looking into ways to bolster the nation's defenses against threats such as worms and viruses.

The hearing is focused on finding feasible solutions to the ever-worsening problem of e-mail viruses and self-propagating programs such as Blaster and Slammer. The witness list for the hearing before the House Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census includes executives from Symantec Corp., Microsoft Corp., VeriSign Inc., Network Associates Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc., as well as security experts from @stake Inc. and Qualys Inc.

Among those scheduled to testify is Chris Wysopal, director of research and development at @stake, based in Cambridge, Mass. He plans to discuss the ongoing efforts in the security community to improve the handling of vulnerability information, specifically the work being done by the Organization for Internet Safety. The OIS, of which Wysopal and @stake are founding members, has developed a proposal for vulnerability handling that contemplates a structured behavior set for both the vulnerability researcher and the affected software vendors.

[ Read more ]