Originally posted on Federal News Radio

October is National Cyber security month and will be kicked off in Baltimore with a three day conference with a focus on automating security.

The concept of security and the federal government is inevitably wrapped in guidance from National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST.

On October 3, 2012, NIST is working with a wide range of members of the security community to produce the 8th Annual IT Security Automation Conference.

Listen to the interview with Dave Waltermire, security automation architect, in NIST's Computer Security Division.

In the interview, Waltermire gives an overview of the conference, talks about security automation, the history of SCAP, competing standards, the challenges of generating standards, and the role the federal government in this process.

The conference covers continuous monitoring, software assurance, incident handling, analytics, as well as trusted computing.

Listen to the interview with Dave Waltermire.