The Smith School's academic departments and research-focused centers of excellence combine leading scholars and industry veterans who truly understand the importance of risk management. Smith faculty and practitioners explore issues related to how risk impacts financial decisions, supply chains and the broader global economy.

In the 12 years that Lawrence Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, has spent pondering the economic issues related to cybersecurity, the risks have changed significantly. Businesses and government agencies no longer have to worry about teen hackers taking a shot at their organizations for bragging rights. Instead, multinational corporations and government agencies are suffering cyber-attacks from organized crime, large-scale fraud, disgruntled employees and even terrorists.

In the 10 years that Lawrence Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, has spent pondering the economic issues related to cybersecurity, the risks have changed significantly. Businesses and government agencies no longer have to worry about teen hackers taking a shot at their organizations for bragging rights. Instead, multinational corporations and government agencies are suffering cyber-attacks from organized crime, large-scale fraud, disgruntled employees and even terrorists.

College Park, Md. – January 21, 2009 – The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business invites innovative solutions to one of the 21st century’s most pressing concerns – how to allocate scarce resources to protect the massive amount of personal and sensitive data available on computer networks and online. The selection committee is now accepting essay submissions for the Gordon Prize in Managing Cybersecurity Resources.

In the 10 years that Lawrence Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, has spent pondering the economic issues related to cybersecurity, the risks have changed significantly. Businesses and government agencies no longer have to worry about teen hackers taking a shot at their organizations for bragging rights. Instead, multinational corporations and government agencies are suffering cyber-attacks from organized crime, large-scale fraud, disgruntled employees and even terrorists.

Dr. Lawrence A. Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, gave testimony concerning his research (with Dr. Martin Loeb, professor of accounting and information assurance and Deloitte & Touche Faculty Fellow) on cybersecurity economics to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Homeland Security on October 31, 2007. The Subcommittee is working on emerging threats, cybersecurity, and science and technology.

Research by Larry Gordon and Martin Loeb The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has caused an increase in the voluntary disclosure of firms’ information security activities.

Lawrence A. Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting, and Martin Loeb, professor of accounting and information assurance and Deloitte & Touche Faculty Fellow, are pioneers in the economics and financial management of cybersecurity resources. A brief overview of recent key research is now being made available to Chinese scholars through a translation on Gordon's Web site. It is the pairs first foray to directly connect their counterparts in China with the results of their research.

The security of information is a fundamental concern to organizations operating in the modern digital economy. There are technical, behavioral, and organizational aspects related to this concern. There are also economic aspects of information security. One important economic aspect of information security (including cybersecurity) revolves around deriving the right amount an organization should invest in protecting information. Organizations also need to determine the most appropriate way to allocate such an investment.