Smith School to Co-sponsor Fifth Annual Forum on
Financial Information Systems & Cybersecurity on May 29

The information revolution has not only introduced new technologies, but has changed the way business is conducted. Economic transactions increasingly take place via digital electronic activities focused primarily on the interconnectivity obtained via the Internet. A critical part of this interconnectivity is the way organizations have integrated their accounting and financial management systems with Internet–based applications. The importance of the Internet to private and public organizations is well known.

As a result of the above noted developments, cybersecurity has moved to center stage. Indeed, cybersecurity (with its emphasis on information and computer security) has itself become a key issue for private and public organizations in the digital economy. The public policy implications of cybersecurity are now being actively debated. The activities of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have certainly highlighted the importance of this debate.

In order to help form and resolve the debate concerning the relations among financial systems, cybersecurity, and public policy, the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise (from Maryland's School of Public Policy) will co-sponsor the fifth annual Forum on Financial Information Systems and Cybersecurity: A Public Policy Perspective. The forum will be held on May 29, 2008 at the Smith School, Van Munching Hall. Coordinators for the forum are Lawrence A. Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting, and Martin P. Loeb, Deloitte and Touche LLP Faculty Fellow, both of the Smith School’s accounting and information assurance department, and William Lucyshyn, director of research and senior research scholar at the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise.

For more information on the forum contact Dr. Lawrence A. Gordon, lgordon@rhsmith.umd.edu.