Tremendous opportunity for business students lies in an emerging and needed interdisciplinary approach to “making cyber and law work together.” This, according to privacy and cybersecurity attorney Kirk Nahra in delivering the Ira H. Shapiro Memorial Lecture as part of the 18th Forum on Financial Information Systems and Cybersecurity: A Public Policy Perspective.

Among U.S. Army branches, Infantry, Special Forces and Corps of Engineers are household names. Perhaps “Cyber,” the newest branch, is approaching such status. “We look to do partnerships in how to secure our nation in a cyberattack, based on the reality that targeted attacks can deny or disrupt critical services at the local or city level and reverberate outward," said one of the branch’s leaders, Col. Andrew Hall, in describing the initiative to about 60 cyber and policy experts representing academia, business and government and coming from as far away as Houston, Toronto and Taiwan.

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.