The program provides the IEEE's standard agreements for handling intellectual property, governance and antitrust issues, documents that can take individual companies as much as a year to forge. The program also supplies computer support for e-mail groups and Web sites.

A group of six security companies including McAfee Inc., Microsoft Corp., Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro used the program to form the Industry Connections Security Group. ICSG aims to classify and share a broad array of information about computer security threats.

"We saw the program as way to quickly set up multiple working groups on different subjects with connectivity and connection between them," said Jeff Green, ICSG chairman and senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs.

As a first step, the ICSG is developing a way to classify examples of malicious software such as computer viruses.

"We've got a schema together in six months, and we're actually using it," said Green. "I've seen it take a year for new groups just to get antitrust and IP issues out of the way," he added.

The group, which now includes 30 companies, may spawn future efforts in areas such as vulnerability scanning and management, intrusion prevention and digital signatures.

"We don't want to pigeonhole the work of this group, but want to let it have a broad reach," said Green. "Over time this kind of information exchange could be akin to security agencies swapping [threat] data electronically," he said.

The IEEE's Industry Connections service is free initially, but after a year companies who are part of a group have to become IEEE corporate members. Annual fees range from $1,100 to $5,500 depending on the size of the company.

"We wanted to keep the barriers low so people can come in and start working right away," said Jim Wendorf, a technology and standards consultant for the IEEE who helped develop the new program. . The IEEE currently has 134 corporate members, a roster that the current program could help expand.