Cyber-Security Summit Attracts Corporate and Government CIOs
Washington, DC, December 11, 2001 — More than 300 corporate and government chief information officers and other senior executives from a cross section of industries gathered for a Cyber-Security Summit to discuss the ongoing security of the U.S.'s information infrastructure.
Sponsored jointly by Booz Allen Hamilton and Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs, the summit, which was held simultaneously in video-linked facilities in Washington, DC, and Murray Hill, NJ, was the first conference of its kind to bring together top information officials from government and business, to address increasingly complex issues in information security. The challenges facing today's leaders were underscored by keynote speaker Richard Clarke, Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and Special Advisor to the President for CyberSpace Security.
"Look at risk not from the past," Clarke said in his address, but towards the future, "looking at our vulnerabilities and imagining what would be the worst case. That's the way to look at our IT vulnerabilities. Not by what NIMDA and Code Red did in the past, but what somebody could do to your company, what somebody could do to our national defense by a smart, coordinated attack on our IT infrastructure. Because September 11 proved, that sometimes worst case scenarios actually do happen."
Although the Fortune 1000 executives and senior government officials debated a number of themes, there was consensus that: adequate information network defense is essential to business community and national security; technology can strengthen cyber-security, but it must be accompanied by appropriate organizational policies and practices to be effective; customers must demand greater security from software vendors and service providers; and cyber security requires organizations to go beyond the common misunderstandings that often divide the public and private sectors.
Other speakers at the Cyber-Security Summit included Ralph Shrader, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Booz Allen; Jeff Jaffe, President of Bell Labs Research; Bill Joy, Co-founder & Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems; and Booz Allen Vice President Mike McConnell, former director of the National Security Agency.
"This new awareness of security is beginning to be seen as a critical national security issue, we are going to have to cooperate and integrate across boundaries that have not been engaged in much cooperation in the past," McConnell said. "In my view business security is critical to the security of the nation going forward. The key here is integration and coordination."
Additional Information:
Other Related Site Pages...
>> See Leadership in the Post-9/11 World
>> See Booz Allen Announces Practice Dedicated to Strategic Security
>> See Global Resilience
Downloadable Documents...
>> Download Cyber-Security Summit - Executive Summary
