Aussie govt hunts outsourcer for e-threat warnings

The Australian government hopes to make its national e-security alert service useful to Australian businesses by outsourcing its provider of threat information.

The government's current threat update service--accessible via staysmartonline.gov.au--is updated at most twice per month and is sourced entirely from the U.K. government's IT Safe service. In contrast, the U.S.-Cert service--run by the country's Federal government--is updated once a day, if not more.

However, the service provider will not only be judged by the frequency of threats it reports. At the end of each month, the government will undertake a quality assessment test, judging the service against several key performance indicators, including the timeliness, relevance and usefulness of the alert.

The messages posted on the alert must be written in "plain English" and at least 70 percent of the service's users must report finding the alert "useful".

The government has warned would be suppliers they will need to protect against the alert service becoming used as a tool to spread malicious software and its information repositories becoming infected.