Collaborating On CybersecurityCollaborating On Cybersecurity

Two Virginia universities are teaming up--with the help of a $6.5 million federal grant--to establish a research project to get government and business to collaborate on cybersecurity. Researchers at George Mason University's National Center for Technology and Law in Arlington and James Madison University in Harrisonburg will cooperate in managing the Critical Infrastructure Protection Project. The project will be based at George Mason University.

Federal officials, business managers, and academic and government researchers will collaborate to identify security concerns for the nation's critical network infrastructure, such as networks that support banks and energy providers as well as telecommunications systems. "It is very easy to talk about strategic alliances as a solution to challenges and a vehicle to pursue opportunities," JMU president Linwood H. Rose said in a statement announcing the project. "It is much harder to develop and implement them."

Among the project's goals: to centralize government and business information on how to combat cybersecurity threats, says project head John McCarthy, an ex-Clinton administration official who oversaw government-business collaboration for the year 2000 conversion. "Right now," he said, "that data is all over the map, and we're planning to bring that together in one place."