Gordon Prize in Managing
Cybersecurity Resources Awarded
Pioneering Cybersecurity Expert Lawrence A.
Gordon Awards First $1,000 Prize
 |
| Rainer Böhme, of the
Institute of Systems Architecture at Technische Universität Dresden in
Germany |
 |
Tyler Moore, of the Center
for Research on Computation and Society at
Harvard University |
College Park, Md. – October 14, 2009 — The University of
Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business today announced the recipients of
the first Gordon Prize in Managing Cybersecurity Resources, an essay contest
that had competitors offering innovative solutions for how to allocate resources
to protect personal and sensitive data on computers and online. Rainer Böhme, of
the Institute of Systems Architecture at Technische Universität Dresden in
Germany, and Tyler Moore, of the Center for Research on Computation and Society
at Harvard University, won for their essay titled “The Iterated Weakest Link.”
The competition and prize is named for pioneering cybersecurity expert Lawrence
A. Gordon, the Smith School’s Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial
Accounting and Information Assurance.
“The entries we received represented excellent insight on the how
individuals, organizations and government can effectively manage cybersecurity
resources,” said Gordon. “It’s so important to continually reassess the most
effective investments to guard against cyber threats and vulnerabilities because
the interconnectedness of technology means that any attack could cripple an
organization. The winning essay analyzes an innovative wait-and-see approach on
when and how to invest in information security.”
In their winning essay, Böhme and Moore say that by waiting for hackers to
strike the weakest link in an information system, the company ends up investing
in the most needed area, and hence achieves a higher overall return on their
information security investments. The team hatched the idea behind their winning
essay on a bus ride from Dartmouth to Boston in the summer of 2008.
Böhme received a PhD in computer science from Technische Universität Dresden
and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the International Computer
Science Institute, Berkeley. His research interests include economics of privacy
and information security, steganography and steganalysis, multimedia forensics,
and privacy-enhancing technologies.
Moore received a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge, St
John's College and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for
Research on Computation and Society (CRCS) at Harvard University. His research
at CRCS focuses on the economics of information security, the study of
electronic crime and the development of policy for strengthening security.
Additional research interests include decentralized network security, critical
infrastructure protection, and digital forensics.
The Gordon Prize is offered yearly and the competition is open to students,
faculty, and information security professionals in both the public and private
sector. Essays are evaluated on their ability to provide and describe a clear,
innovative solution to the problem associated with managing cybersecurity
resources.
Gordon is committed to raising awareness of the issue of cybersecurity and
its importance to business and government leaders. In 2003 he and two other
colleagues at the University of Maryland instituted the Smith School’s annual
Cybersecurity Forum, now in its sixth year, to bring together the rich
interchange of ideas that can only occur when people from many academic
backgrounds and industries gather. He sees the Gordon Prize as another way of
encouraging practitioners and theoreticians alike to approach the problem of
cybersecurity in a multi-disciplinary way.
About the University of Maryland’s Robert H.
Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader
in management education and research. One of 13 colleges and schools at the
University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate,
full-time and part-time MBA, executive MBA, executive MS, PhD and executive
education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The
school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning
locations in North America and Asia.
