Cybersecurity Roundtable Launched

November 15, 2001

CHICAGO—The initial meeting of the Chicago Cybersecurity Roundtable took place Tuesday, November 13th at the offices of Goldberg, Kohn, Black, Rosenbloom & Moritz, Ltd. Participants included security professionals, attorneys, CTOs/CIOs and large corporate users of cybersecurity services. Topics discussed included newly-available computer security benchmarks and associated compliance and reporting tools, potential liability relating to security breaches and appropriate corporate policies that minimize security risks.

The Cybersecurity Roundtable is a group of professionals in the Chicagoland area concerned about protecting the information assets entrusted to their care. The Roundtable intends to sponsor an ongoing series of discussions focused on various security threats affecting today's businesses.

A common thread throughout the discussions was the interplay between emerging computer security standards and legal risks, especially in light of the current "ship now, fix later" practice of today's software vendors and the impact of that practice on users who are unable to configure their software to run in a secure manner.

"With the standards and tools developed by the Center for Internet Security, we now have an effective way for organizations to measure the security status of the systems they acquire and operate, as well as the systems of their business partners," said Clint Kreitner, president and CEO of the Center for Internet Security, a not-for profit industry leader in the computer security arena.

"With standards like those being created by the Center for Internet Security, companies concerned about their legal risks for security breaches will finally have an objective benchmark to analyze and manage their risks. Companies that fail to take advantage of these standards do so at their own peril," stated Gerald Jenkins, principal at Goldberg, Kohn.