FS-ISAC and DTCC Partner on Cybersecurity

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) have formed a strategic joint venture, Soltra, to develop cybersecurity solutions for financial services firms and others worldwide.

The joint venture has been established to deliver software automation and services that collect, distill and speed the transfer of threat intelligence. Over 125 FS-ISAC members and representatives from government entities and the private sector contributed to the requirements, architecture and design of Soltra’s automation software, the Soltra Edge solution, which connects and streamlines the flow of threat intelligence. This solution is undergoing testing by users and will be generally available in late 2014.

The solution can support thousands of organizations and distill large amounts of data into actionable intelligence, leveraging open standards including Structured Threat Information eXpression (STIX) and Trusted Automated eXchange of Indicator Information (TAXII). The solution will include the platform, infrastructure and ecosystem to help all sizes of organizations, including other industry bodies to streamline threat information sharing.

“Today, most cyber threat information is provided manually to users from various, unconnected industry sources. Because of this, on average, it can take firms seven hours to evaluate each threat,” says Mark Clancy, CEO of Soltra, chief information security officer of DTCC and board member of FS-ISAC. “With Soltra Edge, one organization’s incident becomes everyone’s defense. The solution will enable clients to send, receive, and store cyber security threat intelligence in a streamlined and automated format, enabling these firms to deploy safeguards against a potential cyber attack.”

“As a joint venture, Soltra has assembled a world-class team and support from some of the most respected companies in the world in order to architect and build a solution for tomorrow’s information sharing,” says Bill Nelson, president of Soltra and president and CEO of FS-ISAC. “Today’s threat intelligence sharing must occur at network speeds. It needs to reduce the workload for security analysts and for smaller organizations. It needs to be available for all critical sectors in order to share information within each sector and also cross-sector to increase resiliency from cyber threats.”

“We believe that combating cyber threats requires partnering across companies and industries—that we are all in this together,” says Sean Franklin, vice president of Cyber Intelligence, American Express Company and board member of FS-ISAC. “Automating the exchange of threat information will play a vital role in creating a robust community defense strategy that benefits participating members.”