Goals

‘Security for all’ – that is our mission.

Our goals are ambitious but achievable with cooperation between the computer industry, governments and consumers:

1. We want all new computers to be supplied in a secure state, ready to be used on insecure networks e.g. the Internet. The level of security rating should be determined from analysis of the hardware, operating system and applications installed against a public security standard with multiple levels of ratings.
2. We want all new computers to be classified with a security rating. Using a simple scheme which gives the purchaser a level of assurance of the computer’s security ‘out the box’. This should be a similar scheme to the crash test ratings given to cars or energy consumption ratings given electrical products.
3. We want an independent expert body to be created which evaluates the computer security of all new home computers offered for sale and certifies the security rating that can be displayed by the manufacturer or seller.

To achieve these goals there needs to be a conscious change in the computing industry. If you are a large corporation you have the budget to buy insecure computers and hire people like ourselves to secure these computers. If you are the typical person buying a computer for home from a retail outlet or website then you may have no knowledge of the security of the product you purchase. This is an unfair situation based on people’s ability to pay. This is not security for all.

We are a consortium of IT and Information Security experts who have combined our knowledge and experience to form a ‘not for profit’ organisation based in the Netherlands. We have advised governments, financial industries, major manufacturers and charities, so the Secure IT Foundation has the expertise to help help achieve security for all.

Our contribution to security for all is to release security advice in the form of our daily blog, and publish security awareness documents usually only found in large companies for free.

The Secure Computer Standard is available on the Standard page or can be found on the Documents page along with the Risk Profile Questionnaire and Home Computer Policy. To find out more about us or our published documents, get in touch using Contact Us.

Don’t forget to complete our poll on the need for a security rating for computers: