That effort, which could inform private-sector security practices and will have a significant impact on security-cleared defense contractors, is set to wrap up this year, with an initial report expected to be issued to the White House and senior national security authorities in the next month or two, and a final set of standards and guidance for implementation likely to roll out to the departments and agencies in October, federal officials said Wednesday here at the government IT conference.

"If you were going to put it in one word, it's focusing on the threat posed by malicious insiders," said John Swift, senior policy advisor to the Insider Threat Task Force for the office of the director of national intelligence.

President Obama issued the establishing the task force in October in response to the alleged exfiltration of huge stores of classified documents by Pfc. Bradley Manning, and their subsequent publication in various global media outlets.

The executive order directs all agency heads who deal with classified information to designate a senior official to oversee the organization's activities surrounding the sharing and protecting of sensitive files, and to implement a program to detect insider threats once the task force issues its final guidelines. Those agencies will also be charged with conducting self-assessments of their compliance with the new standards and policies, and required to submit those reports to a new steering committee that the executive order established. Affected agencies will also be expected to dispatch staff, as needed, to the task force and a new Classified Information Sharing and Safeguarding Office.

That will mean a variety of new mandates for cash-strapped agencies -- always a source of concern in the government -- though the president's executive order allows that implementation of the directive is subject to the availability of funding.