The alliance, called the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (IT-ISAC), will include technology companies, such as Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
IT-ISAC, whose membership is currently only open to US-based IT companies, follows the model of other vertical industries, including banking and finance, that have set up alliances to alert their members to security issues.
IT-ISAC will operate 24 hours a day. It will be run by Internet Security Systems, which will collect and pass on vulnerability information. The information will only be made available to group members because the companies want to keep their network vulnerabilities secret from their partners, and from hackers.
There have been calls recently for UK firms to do more to share information since a wave of denial-of-service attacks last year affected high-profile sites, including Yahoo, Amazon and eBay. Last October, Raymond Kendall, secretary general of Interpol, told UK businesses to work together to protect themselves from such threats.
Gareth Evans, a security consultant at e-commerce solutions company Cyrano, said it was in the best interests of firms to pool their security efforts. "The priority of businesses will always be to protect themselves and their customers," he added.
A spokeswoman for the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) said the success of initiatives like the IT-ISAC alliance depended on input from the police, users and industry.
