Despite much investment being put into the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) system, a key component of President Obama’s cybersecurity strategy, the program is off to a slow start, as very few organizations have shared cyber threat indicators with DHS. According to a recent Inside Sources article, only one of the 137 companies signed up to participate in the portal has shared information. On the other hand, Mark Kneidinger, director of the federal network resilience division at DHS, claimed the portal has shared more than 29,000 cyber threats including malicious software, IP addresses, phishing emails, etc. He did not clarify where the threat indicators came from, but they were most likely from law enforcement.
Industry experts claim a main reason of the low participation is because of a lack of clarity in liability protections. In addition, the new standards for AIS participation will be issued in the next few months, according to DHS Assistant Secretary Andy Ozment. Once the private sector gets a better grasp of the portal and its final guidelines, greater participation will follow.