Cybersecurity
Cyber attack and exploitation pose a severe threat to the U.S. BENS members counter the cyber threat by:
- Heightening awareness of “C-Suite executives” of the severity of the cybersecurity threat, and promote the integration of cybersecurity into corporate governance. BENS members across the country meet with top national security and intelligence experts.
- Assisting Government Partners with tough cyber challenges:
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): BENS members participated in the FBI’s Information Technology Study Group.
- European Command: At the request of the U.S. European Command, BENS formed a team in May 2011 to assess cyber vulnerabilities in Latvia’s government networks, financial systems, and critical information technology networks.
BENS provides an important forum for government and business to come together to confront and defeat cyber challenges.
Assisting Government Partners: BENS works with House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
“It’s great to see business working with government to improve the security of our country” remarked “Dutch” Ruppersberger, Ranking Member, with agreement from Mike Rogers, Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, at the conclusion of a roundtable discussion on May 8 with Committee members, BENS members, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Intelligence Community, and the CIOs for CIA and NSA.
During the roundtable the CIO of the Intelligence Community updated Committee members on the Intelligence Community’s IT Transformation Plan to move from an agency-centric business to an Intelligence Community enterprise model that provides integrated processes, improves information sharing, betters discoverability of intelligence information, and ultimately drives down the cost of running IT in the community. BENS members—Al Berkeley, Tom Dolan, Bill Brunkhardt, Josh Morton (representing Dan Hesse), and Monty Meigs, CEO--shared their observations and suggestions for improving the Plan and identified key issues for oversight by the Committee.
The Committee came to BENS seeking insight from members of the business community with experience managing large scale IT Transformation projects, including cloud computing migration. The Committee considered the perspective of these seasoned business leaders critical to making an informed final approval of the Plan. In February, the Committee arranged for the CIO for the Intelligence Community to brief BENS members on the Plan. This briefing and discussion with the CIO, served as the foundation for the report BENS members provided to the Committee and the CIO. The report documents their findings and recommendations, covering culture and change management; security; program management and metrics; and opportunities for further efficiencies. BENS’ findings and recommendations informed the Committee’s markup of the House Intelligence bill, according to the Committee’s Budget Director.
In addition to Rogers and Ruppersberger, other Committee members attending included Representatives Michele Bachmann, Frank LoBiondo, Dan Boren, and Jim Langevin. Also in attendance were Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Ken Calvert from Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
BENS Members may access the full report on our Members Only section, here.