Internet Storm Center

The Internet Storm Center (ISC) is a website overseen by the SANS Institute that monitors current online security attacks and publishes information about them. The site is often referred to as an Internet warning system, functioning as a kind of cybersecurity counterpart to the early warning systems established to mitigate the risk of harm from various types of natural disasters and other dangerous events.

The Internet Storm Center is manned by volunteer security experts known as “handlers,” each of whom usually works one 24-hour shift a month and reports in a blog post known as a “diary.” The site gets a great deal of input from an active readership of tens of thousands of people who report on attacks and anomalous behaviors on their own networks. The vigilance of handlers and members means that the Internet Storm Center is often able to break news of an attack or a new type of threat before commercial security vendors can.

The website makes the following data and tools freely available:

The Internet Storm Center also provides a news section featuring current articles from SANS and other websites, as well as security-related job postings and a forum.