CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, Senator Benjamin Cardin’s title was incorrect. He is a U.S. Senator representing this state.
Due to a reporting error, the purpose of Senator Cardin’s legislation was misrepresented in this article. If passed, the government and private sector would collaborate to determine what kind of minimum standards for cybersecurity are necessary and if they should be voluntary or not.
The below article has been changed to reflect these corrections.
Identity theft, Internet bullying and privacy breaches are digital-age risks that state officials and university researchers are working to decrease in this state.
Amid a summer that saw multiple cybersecurity breaches — such as Citigroup bank and Bank of America — Senator Benjamin Cardin (D — Md.) is advocating for better Internet user protection to Congress. And the university is also working to strengthen barriers between hackers and private Internet users through the Maryland Cybersecurity Center, which announced a new partnership with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory last month.
The Center has become a national forerunner in cybersecurity and established multiple partnerships last year with other institutions including Tenable Network Security and Lockheed Martin, according to Associate Director Eric Chapman. The Center’s research hopes to help mitigate security breaches and help with Cardin’s main goal to protect the state’s Internet users, according to Sue Walitsky, Cardin’s National Communications Director.
If Cardin’s legislation fostering government collaboration with private cybersecurity companies on the issue passes, the government and private sector would collaborate to determine what kind of minimum standards for cybersecurity are necessary and if they should be voluntary or not.
Because the state has one of the highest concentrations of cybersecurity jobs, Walitsky said it is only natural for Cardin to take a stand on the matter.
“Senator Cardin believes we can find a balance between keeping information flowing freely and keeping it safe,” Walitsky said. “Free and open Internet gives a voice to people worldwide and needs to be protected from censorship. However, there are plenty of predators who want to exploit or compromise the information systems.”
Although the Center has not yet put its research into practice, Chapman said this university aims to continue forming partnerships with other universities and corporations so that one day, their work can be implemented.
Chapman said the Center’s partners examine cybersecurity from a range of angles, including behavioral, economic, business and public policy and its multidisciplinary approach sets this university apart from other institutions.
“There is an enormous technological component and technical solutions will be at forefront, but our comprehensive approach puts us heads and shoulders above other universities,” Chapman said.
Public policy professor John Steinbruner said he supports Cardin’s actions and that he would like to see cybersecurity become a global initiative. However, Steinbruner noted that security programs can be costly and take time to install.
“People are reluctant to slow up their company’s work with security provision because it would make them marginally less efficient than their competitors,” Steinbruner said. “You would have to impose rules on everyone at the time — Maryland is just too small a scope.”
But Joshua Berenhaus, treasurer of Maryland’s Cybersecurity Club, said there are other options out there to protect Internet users from hackers, such as training sessions for those who are new to the web.
“I definitely think it’s important for everybody to know how to protect their systems,” the sophomore computer science major said. “It’s important on a global scale especially, but you have to start somewhere.”
But conversations on cybersecurity cannot wait much longer, researchers said.
“Whether it’s looking for jobs in the cyber world or simply protecting yourself, I think people should be interested in cybersecurity, even if their background is not computer science,” said William Nolte, a research professor in the school of public policy. “People are just now starting to realize that we are not invulnerable.”
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