The Treasury Department announced last week it will buy $2 million worth of services from a new financial information clearinghouse, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, aimed at sharing information on physical and cyber-threats to the financial system. The system, organized in 1999 around the Y2K threat, went live Dec. 1 offering services such as event alerts, 24-hour monitoring of the international financial infrastructure, and crisis conference calls. The center, organized around 80 large banks, is now seeking to expand its membership to the 30,000 banks, credit unions, insurance companies and securities firms in the country.
The Treasury funds will be used to upgrade the systems at the center. "At the heart of our ability to protect our financial system from attack or disruption is the sharing of information between government and the private sector, as well as information sharing among individual financial institutions," said Treasury Secretary John Snow in a statement announcing the Treasury award.
