Scholars from Around the World Unite to
Discuss Financial Information Systems
and Cybersecurity at Smith's Annual
Forum
Can
an individual computer user be held
liable for neglecting to update their
virus protection? How much is enough for
a firm to spend on information security?
What can be done about the free-rider
problem?
These were among the questions
explored by a group of scholars from
around the world at the Second Annual
Forum on Cybersecurity held at the
Robert H. Smith School of Business on
Thursday, May 26, 2005.
Information security is becoming more
important as society grapples with
problems like identity theft and nations
work to ensure the safety of their
computer networks, which drive so much
of modern business, government and
military activities. Information
assurance is a growing field of
research, and University of Maryland
scholars are among its thought leaders.
The Second Annual Forum on Cybersecurity
was organized by three of those thought
leaders: Lawrence A. Gordon, Ernst &
Young Alumni Professor of Managerial
Accounting, and Martin P. Loeb, Deloitte
and Touche LLP Faculty Fellow, both of
the Smith Schools accounting and
information assurance department, and
William Lucyshyn, a visiting senior
research scholar at the University of
Maryland School of Public Policy.
Their
work has been encouraged by Smith School
Dean Howard Frank. This field is close
to my highest priority in the area of
technology development, said Dean Frank
in his welcoming remarks. As director of
the Information Technology Office at the
Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency prior to his term at the Smith
School, Frank observed to his dismay
that little attention had been paid to
the possibility of information attacks
or intrusion into the network by hostile
forces. The overall information
structures of our nation are still
vulnerable, says Frank. There are grave
and dramatic consequences for the
neglect of information security.
This years Cybersecurity Forum
focused on financial information
systems, for whom security is an
ever-increasing concern. The existing
financial services sector information
sharing and analysis center (ISAC),
which was expanded by a Homeland
Security presidential directive after
9/11, now has more than 1500 members. It
gathers threat, risk and vulnerability
information about cyber and physical
risks faced by the financial sector, and
then delivers advisories to help the
nations financial service avoid those
threats.
Forum
topics ranged from the very quantitative
to the more descriptive. The issues
surrounding information security need to
be addressed in a multi-disciplinary
way, said Gordon. We made an effort to
include subject matter of interest to
practitioners as well as academians.
Presenters from around the world
discussed the most cutting-edge research
related to information security. Kjell
Hausken, of the University of Stavanger,
Norway, presented a model describing the
factors that effect whether and how
firms share security information. Erin
Kenneally, of the University of
California-San Diego, discussed
negligence as a mechanism to enforce
information security. Both discussions
were driven by the economic concerns, as
were others throughout the day: how much
security is enough, both to keep your
firms assets safe and to keep you from
being sued for negligence?
Other presenters included Al
Bhimanai, London School of Economics,
United Kingdom; Mthuli Ncube, University
of Wiwatersrand, South Africa; John
Bagby, Pennsylvania State University;
Kanta Matsuura and Hideyuki Tanaka,
University of Tokyo, Japan; and Paul
Kurtz, Executive Director of the Cyber
Security Industry Alliance.
The
Honorable Jacques S. Gansler, Vice
President for Research at the University
of Maryland, spoke at a luncheon. Happy
to see participation in the Forum from
so many countries, Gansler, former Under
Secretary of Defense, stressed that
cybersecurity is a global problem, and
that the vulnerability of the financial
communitys information systems is a
problem that must be addressed by both
the private and public sectors. We must
keep worrying about it," he says. We
must work together to solve this ongoing
problem because we are all as vulnerable
as our weakest link.
▓ Rebecca Winner,
Office of Marketing Communications
On the evening before the forum, many of
the attendees took in a Baltimore
Orioles baseball game at Camden Yards.
