Today marks the launch of the Dark Reading information security community, a new online forum that will enable IT security professionals to interact with researchers, journalists, and their peers to expand their sphere of conversation and help find solutions to today’s cyber-security problems.

Powered by UBM Tech – parent company of InformationWeek, Network Computing, Black Hat, and Interop – the new community combines the award-winning IT security news resources of Dark Reading and InformationWeek on a new, interactive online platform that makes it easier than ever for readers to contribute content, make comments on hot topics, and engage in online conversation. Our goal is to make it easier than ever for security professionals to communicate online in a collegial atmosphere, just as they do at live events such as Black Hat.

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Take a spin across the new site. You’ll see that Dark Reading’s content has been redesigned and merged with the Security section of InformationWeek, combining two of the web’s best resources for cyber-security news and analysis. The new Dark Reading offers even more breaking news and insight than either publication ever provided alone.

But that’s only the beginning. Dark Reading has significantly expanded its Commentary stream, opening up its rolls to more than 100 security experts and contributors. In the days ahead, you’ll see insights from some of the industry’s most prominent security professionals, adding a new dimension of conversation to the topic. We’ll also be offering new ways to interact with those professionals, including online chats, Internet radio shows, and video blogs that will enable you to hear from those experts in a more personal, bi-directional fashion.

We’re also adding a new player who will help make the conversation more effective than ever: you.  By registering your profile on Dark Reading, you can directly influence the IT security community by making comments on news stories and columns, starting new conversations, and interacting with your peers on the site. Our goal is to help you answer your specific questions about cyber-security – and make your voice heard.

The new community builds on the longstanding relationship between InformationWeek and Dark Reading, which will continue to produce useful online resources, including digital issues, Tech Digests, webcasts, and deep-dive research. You’ll also see increasing ties between Dark Reading’s online community and its sister organization, Black Hat, which produces some of the IT security industry’s best live events across the globe.

In the days and weeks ahead, we will offer tutorials, tips, and recommendations on how you can use the Dark Reading online community to collect information, interact with your peers, ask questions of experts, and make a name for yourself. We believe this site is the next generation of professional communication, and we’re anxious to work with you to help build a community that is useful to the entire cyber-security industry.

Welcome to the new Dark Reading information security community. We look forward to talking – and working – with you.