ACADEMIA

NJIT will co-host with the New Jersey United States Marine Corps Reserve Association a daylong cyber-terrorism symposium looking at proactive approaches to counter-terrorism. The event, set for Nov. 5, 2011, from 8:30 a.m. - 4 p.m., in the NJIT Campus Center will feature George Johnson, the chief security officer of NC4 and the founder and chief information officer of the ESP Group as the keynote speaker.

The public is invited. No fee will be charged for matriculated college students, but all others will be asked to pay $50 at the door. For more information, contact Walter F. Conner Col. USMC (Ret.), president,             609-977-2114       wconner9@verizon.net).

Topics include how cyber-terrorism affects U.S. public and private institutions with a focus on distributed denial of service attacks and nefarious network trends. Speakers will take a closer look at who should worry about such tactics and mitigating strategies to minimize damage and preclude a loss of confidence in organizations and institutions.

Criminal acts and the role of law enforcement and prosecution with respect to the US Department of Defense's (DOD) doctrinal framework for active responses to cyber-terrorism and/or state-sponsored criminality will be another topic. Speakers will address how DOD cyber-initiatives complement efforts by state and local agencies through the sharing of information and intelligence.

Panel discussions will examine the necessity of policy deliberations for a cross-sector, unified effort to mitigate or neutralize an all-out cyber attack against key assets and critical infrastructure. Noted will be the impacts of rapidly advancing technology, the proliferation of capabilities to launch cyber attacks (such as intimidation/incursions on all levels), cultural frameworks and adaptive nature of the threats, balancing individual rights against regulatory issues and the origin of attacks and assigning attribution.

Registration opens at 8:30 a.m. followed by a welcome from Colonel (Ret.) Walter Conner and Brigadier General (Ret.) William Marshall, associate vice president at NJIT. The director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University Cybercrime Training Laboratory, Eamon Doherty, will speak about denying services and network intrusion Trends. Cyber-terrorism as a crime will also be discussed by Seton Hall University Law School Associate Professor David W. Opderbeck, J.D., LL.M.. The afternoon sessions include a discussion about policy issues that need to be in place and a look at how DOD actively responds to cyber attacks.