Identifying Security Organizations

Several different security organizations exist that provide different levels of assistance and documentation for IT security personnel. It’s worthwhile knowing some of these organizations and what kind of documentation they provide.

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been mentioned several times in this book. NIST includes a Computer Security Division and an Information Technology Laboratory (ITL). The organization regularly performs research in the area of information technology in direct support of federal agencies, but also make its research publicly available as special publications (SPs).

The SP 800 series of documents includes over 100 well-researched documents on a wide range of IT security topics, including cloud computing, risk management, intrusion detection systems, protection of wireless transmissions and personally identifiable information (PII), and much more. You can view a full list of these documents (and download any of them) from here: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html.