The National Institute of Standards and Technologies released three new drafts of security-related special publications today. They cover e-mail security, intrusion detection and prevention, and securing Web services and applications.

The first is called “Guidelines on Electronic Mail Security,” an update to SP 800-45 released in 2002. The guide includes policy suggestions for deploying and configuring e-mail servers, training employees on security, and applying encryption. NIST will accept public comments on this publication at sp800-45a@nist.gov until Oct. 6.

The second publication is titled “Guide to Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems.” It provides assistance to agencies for designing, implementing, configuring, securing, monitoring and maintaining IDP systems for an entire enterprise and smaller divisions. It also provides guidance for different network-based IDP systems. NIST will take comments at 800-94comments@nist.gov until Oct. 20.

The third publication, “Guide to Secure Web Services,” deals with Web services security, specifically in applications. It also details security features in Extensible Markup Language; Simple Object Access Protocol; and the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration protocol and related open standards. NIST will accept comments at 800-95comments@nist.gov until Oct. 30.