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Following on news from the Identity Theft Resource Center that data breaches have reached an all time high over the first eight months of 2008, a new venture involving government, private and educational constituents has been launched to help deal with the problem.
Dubbed the Center for Applied Identity Management Research (CAIMR), the group is being backed by members including IBM, Indiana University, LexisNexis, the U.S. Secret Service and Visa.
According to the organizations involved, CAIMR will be focused on “developing research and solutions for society’s most daunting identity management challenges such as cybercrime, terrorism, financial crimes, identity theft and fraud, weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics and human trafficking.”
Now that’s a broad swath of objectives, and it’s pretty interesting to view issues of ID theft and general identification of bad guy, such as terrorists, in the same project.
The Center claims to be the first of its kind to “bring cross-disciplinary experts in criminal justice, financial crime, biometrics, cybercrime and cyber defense, data protection, homeland security and national defense to address identity management challenges that impact individuals, public safety, commerce, government programs and national security.”
Additional members include Cogent, Fair Isaac, University of Texas at Austin, Wells Fargo & Company, the U.S. Marshals Service, Dragnet Solutions, ID Experts, Identity Theft Assistance Corporation (ITAC), Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
“CAIMR is a trusted public private partnership of organizations focused on solving some of the nation’s most challenging identity management problems,” Gary R. Gordon, Ed.D. Executive Director of CAIMR said in the group’s published announcement notice. “As a non-profit organization governed by its partners with a strong affiliation with its host academic institution, Indiana University, CAIMR is uniquely positioned to foster a collaborative applied research environment that brings together the multi-disciplinary talent, resources, data sources, and analytical capabilities to take up this challenge.”
Other participants also committed their resources to making the group unique.
“In spite of our recent successful investigations both domestically and internationally, cybercrime remains a substantial threat that continues to evolve and attack our financial systems,” said Michael P. Merritt, Assistant Director, Office of Investigations, United States Secret Service.
“Successfully combating emerging identity crimes requires that the Secret Service and law enforcement forge and enhance partnerships with industry, academic and research organizations. The Secret Service has always credited our accomplishments to the vital partnerships we enjoy and we look forward to working with and being a part of the Center (CAIMR) to address the ever changing landscape of transnational identity crimes,” he said.
Matt Hines has been following the IT industry for over a decade as a reporter and blogger, and has been specifically focused on the security space since 2003, including a previous stint writing for eWeek and contributing to the Security Watch blog. Hines is currently employed as marketing communications manager at Core Security Technologies, a Boston-based maker of security testing software. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Core Security, and neither the company, nor its products and services will be actively discussed in the blog. Please send news, research or tips to SecurityWatchBlog@gmail.com.