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Smith CIBER Hosts Global Security &
Enterprise Resilience Forum
Security is a hot topic, but its not
one that is easy to get your arms
around. Our increasingly global and
interconnected society is forcing us to
think of security, whether of
information or infrastructure, in
entirely new ways. Scholars and security
experts came together to address a wide
range of global security concerns at the
Global Security and Enterprise
Resilience conference sponsored by the
Center for International Business and
Research (CIBER) at the University of
Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of
Business on April 12 and 13, 2007.
 Alfred
Berkeley III, chairman and chief
executive officer of Pipeline Financial
Group, Inc., and Pipeline Trading
Systems LLC, is steeped in these
problems as a member of the National
Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC).
Berkeley, keynote speaker for the
conferences Thursday sessions, describes
himself as an evangelist for issues of
global security and particularly for the
work of NIAC, which advises the
president on ways to protect U.S.
infrastructure. This is a particularly
difficult proposition because 95 percent
of the nations infrastructure water and
electric utilities, telecommunications
companies are privately owned. These
infrastructure companies are interested
in competing effectively, and somewhat
less interested in cooperating to react
quickly and effectively to security
threats.
Berkeley and his compatriots at NIAC
wrestle with issues that are
tremendously complex. For example, the
group recently considered the avian flu:
how do you distribute a limited supply
of flu vaccine to maximize the survival
rate of a disease that kills more than
half of the people who contract it? Its
a complex problem with a lot of nuances,
not amenable to sound bites of simple
solutions. And a pandemic is easy to
talk about, because there are no human
actors and everybody is on the same
side, said Berkeley.
 After
9/11, the federal government invited
organizations to share information about
organizational weaknesses in order to
help national security specialists
develop effective counterterrorism
strategies. But Berkeley found that few
CEOs were willing to share information
about vulnerabilities in their
organizations because they feared such
information would get out to their
competitors, or subject their companies
to additional regulations. To combat
this problem, NIAC suggested that an
exception be made to the Freedom of
Information Act that would keep
information about organizational
vulnerabilities from being made
available to the public.
While Berkeley focused on some of the
security problems facing the United
States, John Steinbrunner, professor
of public policy and director of the
Center for International and Security
Studies at the University of Maryland,
painted a broad picture of the key
international security issues requiring
globally practiced oversight with rules
and norms developed by consensus among
nations. The rest of the days presenters
addressed human behavior as it related
to enterprise security, particularly
cybersecurity; the effects of global
terrorism on the corporate world; and
business as war.
While topics from the Thursday
sessions focused on issues pertaining to
global security, Friday sessions focused
on enterprise resilience. How can
organizations manage risk, in an
increasingly smaller and flatter world?
How can organizations ensure regulatory
compliance in a world of multiple
standards, often driven by special
interests or specific industry needs?
What economic incentives are required to
make information sharing desirable? On
both Thursday and Friday, presentations
were followed by lively and occasionally
heated discussions.
A complete list of conference
speakers is available on the conference
Web site and presentations will be
posted online. To learn more about the
Smith CIBER and to download conference
papers, visit
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ciber.
▓ Rebecca Winner, Senior Writer &
Editor, Office of Marketing
Communications
Photos by Lisa Helfert
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