‘Getting Serious About Cybersecurity’

As Congress considers the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2005, leading experts and policymakers are to gather to debate America's preparedness in the event of a massive cyber infrastructure attack or failure. The two-hour debate ‘Getting Serious About Cybersecurity’ will assess the scope of the cyber threats, the counter-measures currently in place to protect the nation and what still needs to be done to strengthen America's defences against such a potentially debilitating attack.

In recent weeks news organisations have reported serious security breaches in thousands of sophisticated computer networks across the United States, including the systems serving the American military, NASA and research laboratories.

As far back as 1990, the National Academy of Sciences reported, "tomorrow's terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than a bomb." Yet today, 15 years later, critics argue that the US government has failed to adequately strengthen America's defences against the increasing number of cyber terrorists operating worldwide. ‘Getting Serious About Cybersecurity’ will provide an opportunity to debate these issues.

The event is being sponsored by the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program (CIP Program) at The George Mason University (GMU) School of Law and will take place on Wednesday, May 18th at The National Press Club.

Panelists include:

* Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman, House Government Reform Committee;
* Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D-Calif.), ranking member, House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research & Development;
* Paul Kurtz, executive director, Cyber Security Industry Alliance;
* Pamela Fusco, chief security officer, Merck & Co., Inc.; and
* Marian Hopkins, director, Public Policy, Business Roundtable.

•Date: 12th May 2005 • Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: Information security
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