IEEE information assurance activities

An information assurance (IA) community is forming around core activities of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) that include the recently approved IA Standards Committee (IASC), the Task Force on IA (TFIA), and an existing base of related IEEE groups and projects. A brief description is provided of the ideas and activities concerning redefinition of information assurance, works on standards, and initial collaborations. Information assurance guarantees the timely delivery of information, conditioned by requirements for confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, authorization, and nonrepudiation. Active IEEE Information Assurance standards cover a wide range of technologies, with recent projects concerning the definition of information assurance and related terms; baseline operation system security; certificate issuing and management components; software engineering standards; and an architecture for encrypted shared media.