The Latest in IT Security

By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. utilities would benefit from an independent group to set industry-wide guidelines on combating cyber threats, according to a think-tank report released on Friday that was co-authored by a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The report, from the Bipartisan Policy Center, said a new independent organization could bring together the disparate interests in the sector to help manage cybersecurity for the nation’s electric grid, and help to deal with threats such as new malware that could be targeted at plants’ information technology systems. “We don’t have one group looking at this holistically to see what the answers are,” said Curt Hebert, a co-author of the report who is a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency which oversees aspects of the nation’s elecric grid. The other authors of the report were Michael Hayden, director of the CIA under President George W. Bush, and Susan Tierney, former assistant secretary at the Energy Department under President Bill Clinton.