Northrop Grumman, a major government contractor, provided the safe mail-handling equipment used by the U.S. Postal Service during the 2001 anthrax attacks, Pirich said. But even if an IT department budgets for a point solution, it should continue to consider how new security technology can add value to the overall network, he noted.
"It's a matter of intelligent information awareness. You can actually provide real ROI if you think in terms of the existing infrastructure, like security alert systems or networking that also helps save lives during hurricanes," Pirich said.
Clare Cunniffe, director of security solutions at software vendor Computer Associates International, Islandia, N.Y., has worked with state and local governments on DHS initiatives. Although it's challenging to network systems from local areas to the 23 different agencies that make up the DHS, the task can become intimidating if one loses sight of the basics, she said.
"You have 23 government agencies, and then you put on top of that state and local governments and the private sector--transit, identification and credit-card tracking. How do you pull all of that together and correlate it so it makes sense?" Cunniffe said. "Well, it's like the move from the mainframe to distributed computing. It's all about protection and control. Assess vulnerability, respond and recover if something happens."
Waiting until a particular security solution is absolutely perfect can be a big mistake, said Ray Donnelly, director of business development for homeland security at the Command Systems Division of Telephonics, Farmingdale, N.Y. "[IT] tends to wait until we have an all-singing-and-dancing solution, whereas in India, for example, if they have something they deploy it," he said. "Under the current threats, we can't wait, either."
