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Oklahoma State University

Tackling Security Concerns

By Ariel West

With the increasing risk and sophistication of cyber attacks, cyber security is one of the hot topics of 2016.

Hosting the daylong Cyber Security Conference was a first for the Center for Executive and Professional Development at the Spears School of Business. State, national and international experts on cyber security presented topics to more than 200 participants, mostly senior-level business leaders and administrators. Participants were able to ask questions during designated question-and-answer sessions.

Speakers included:

  • Ken Westin, security market specialist, Splunk, Portland, Ore.
  • Terry Jost, partner/principal, advisory risk, EY, Dallas-Fort Worth
  • Matthew Harper, director, information security, Devon Energy, Oklahoma City
  • Sabine Schilg, vice president, security division, IBM, Armonk, N.Y.
  • Kent Nabors, chief information systems officer, MidFirst Bank, Oklahoma City
  • Allison Wikoff, intelligence analyst/security researcher, Dell SecureWorks, Atlanta
  • Monique Morrow, chief technology officer, Cisco Systems, Zurich, Switzerland
  • Gen. Keith Alexander, a military veteran of 40 years and former commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service, followed up the conference as part of the Executive Management Briefings program. His presentation, “A Road Map to Freedom: The Strategy of Effective Cyber Security,” explained the United States’ vulnerabilities.

“We have nation-states using cyber as an element of national power,” Alexander says. “And it will not end. We have the best offense in the world, but we have some problems: Our infrastructure is not built for defense; we live in glass houses. We are not ready to fight in cyberspace.”

Alexander says industry and the government must come together to build a national cyber defense.

“There are two sets of companies: those that have been hacked and know it, and those that have been hacked and don’t know it,” he says. “We want security. Businesses want privacy. Why don’t we get both? We are the country that created the Internet. We have the time now to get this right.”

Identity theft, denial of service attacks and destructive attacks are the most common cyber security threats. A cyber attack on the country’s health care sector, Wall Street or even the power grid would have the same effect as a military attack. With the world estimated to generate 7 exabytes of information, which is more than the amount of information humans have generated in the past 5,000 years, cyber security is more important than ever.

“We can’t slow down, and we shouldn’t slow down, but we have this huge new problem in the vulnerabilities of cyber security,” Alexander says. “We want to help protect industry, which could be the next front for an attack on our country. We have some of the best mathematicians, the best computer scientists. Why not come up with a solution that’s better than having either just security or privacy?”

Rick Wilson, head of the Management Science and Information Systems Department, says the conference was a great way to showcase OSU’s longstanding commitment to providing quality cyber security education.

“OSU’s MIS department has long provided cyber security education and research and has been at the forefront of issues facing Oklahoma and the world,” says Wilson. “We bring experts from around the world every year to provide further insight into the great challenge of cyber security. The speakers this year brought up very important topics, and I know students and faculty alike benefited from this conference.”