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The Smith
School has announced plans to collaborate with the South
Mediterranean University’s Mediterranean School of Business (MSB) in
Tunisia, Africa, to deliver a Masters of Science Degree in the
Management of Information Systems Technology. It is the University
of Maryland’s first partnership with an African university, as well
as the first degree of its kind to be offered in Tunisia.
The program
is targeted toward information systems and technology professionals
in the Middle East, Southern Europe and Northern Africa. Beginning
in March 2006, the program will be offered in bi-monthly two-week
modules at MSB’s campus in Tunis, Tunisia, over one year’s time. The
final module will be held at the Smith School. |
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Can an individual computer user be held liable for neglecting to update
his or her virus protection? How much is enough for a firm to spend on
information security? How can individuals, organizations and even nations be
encouraged to invest in information security?
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
Smith School on Thursday, May 26, 2005 and organized by three thought
leaders in the field: Lawrence A. Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of
Managerial Accounting, Martin P. Loeb, Deloitte and Touche LLP Faculty
Fellow, both of the Smith School’s accounting and information assurance
department, and William Lucyshyn, a visiting senior research scholar at the
University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
The 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 nation’s financial service avoid those threats.
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. University of Maryland scholars lead the way in this
growing field of research.
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.” |
