Responding to a need for better preparedness and coordination of critical infrastructure protection initiatives, leading information technology companies, professional service firms, and information technology trade associations formed the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council (IT-SCC). The primary mission of the IT-SCC is to bring together companies, associations, and other key IT sector participants to discuss sector security issues and engage with the public and private sectors in all areas of critical infrastructure protection. Specifically, the IT SCC was established for the purposes of:

• Identifying IT sector critical infrastructure protection policy engagement topic areas.
• Serving as the focal point for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) policy strategy collaboration within the sector, with other sectors, and across all government levels.
• Consideration and publication of CIP policy positions addressing the integration of United States information technology infrastructure with the global information system.
• Integrating of IT Sector CIP policy development with other industry sectors.
• Improving information sharing among the IT sector, government entities, sector members, and other industry sectors.
• Reviewing of and commenting on CIP-related plans and policies.
• Coordinating between and among the sector's policy-focused and operations-focused mechanisms, and their Government ordinates with regard to:
  • Development of sector recommendations for preparedness and incident response and recovery plans based on the experience of members of the sector.
  • Development of sound practices and lessons learned associated with respect to CIP.
  • Identification of vulnerabilities, interdependencies, risk assessments and risk management methodologies (including vulnerability remediation and policy enforcement) with respect to CIP.
  • Such additional purposes as the IT SCC Executive Committee may from time to time approve consistent with the foregoing purposes.

The IT-SCC also serves as the base of IT sector representation to the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security (PCIS). PCIS is the formally recognized Cross-Sector Council through the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which also recognized the individual Sector Coordinating Councils. PCIS serves as the coordinating body for each of the various Sector Coordinating Councils, and interacts with government at high levels to convey the opinions and perspectives of the private sector on a wide range of policy issues.

Membership in the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council is open to companies in the Information Technology industry; IT sector members are invited to learn more about the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council and join by contacting Joey Lauffer.