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The Corliss Group: White House Cybersecurity Event<br />
to Draw Top Tech, Wall Street Execs<br />
Government to Call on Companies to Help Improve Information Sharing as Breaches Get More<br />
Sophisticated<br />
President Barack Obama will convene top executives from Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and a<br />
number of other industries on Friday in a first-of-its kind cybersecurity “summit” taking place as<br />
the government and corporate executives each struggle to adjust to persistent and sophisticated<br />
breaches.<br />
Mr. Obama will be joined at the Stanford University event by top officials at the Department of<br />
Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The officials will<br />
call on companies to share more information with the government in an effort to combat future<br />
cyberattacks, a plea officials have made for months with limited success.<br />
Mr. Obama’s presence at the event has drawn what has emerged as a Who’s Who of corporate<br />
leaders, reflecting a growing acknowledgment that many companies need to rethink their<br />
cyberdefenses.<br />
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook will deliver remarks about his company’s push toward a<br />
more secure payment system, a theme the White House is expected to try to reinforce for other<br />
companies throughout the event.
An Apple spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Cook will be speaking at the summit. He is expected<br />
to focus on Apple’s experience with mobile payments. Apple introduced Apple Pay in October,<br />
touting a security feature aimed at reducing the chances of credit-card theft.<br />
Mr. Cook will be joined at Stanford on Friday by the CEOs of Bank of America Corp., U.S.<br />
Bancorp, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and PayPal who<br />
also will speak on panels at the daylong event, along with representatives from Facebook Inc.,<br />
Google, Intel Corp., and a numerous other companies.<br />
Input from these executives is notable, as they collectively hold health, financial, search-engine,<br />
and social-media records on tens of millions of Americans. A number of the firms, particularly<br />
the technology companies, have sparred with the federal government over privacy concerns in<br />
recent years.<br />
To acknowledge those concerns, the White House is expected to make privacy a central theme<br />
at the summit, in addition to consumer protection and cybersecurity techniques.<br />
In addition to remarks from Messrs. Obama and Cook, the seven-hour event will include<br />
multiple panel sessions, including separate discussions of public-private collaboration,<br />
consumer protection, and payment technologies.<br />
The entire event will be live-streamed on the White House’s website.<br />
Senior administration officials see the event as a continuation of two years’ worth of<br />
cybersecurity initiatives, but the issue has taken on more urgency in recent months as the<br />
number of cyberattacks has increased dramatically. And recent large-scale breaches at Sony<br />
Pictures Entertainment Inc. and Anthem Inc. have led to an internal debate among government<br />
officials over whether the government should heighten its response to cyberattacks carried out<br />
by foreign countries.<br />
Also notably, the White House’s list of panelists and speakers at the summit doesn't include<br />
representatives from many of the large companies that have suffered major breaches in recent<br />
years, such as Home Depot Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Target Corp., Sony, or Anthem. A<br />
senior administration official said these companies weren't excluded from panels at the event.<br />
Also missing from the list of panelists and speakers are officials from the U.S. intelligence<br />
community, such as the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence<br />
officials often collect information about cyberthreats, and the White House on Tuesday<br />
announced a new office that is meant to collect and analyze their data.<br />
But many technology companies remain skeptical about the operations of these agencies,<br />
particularly the NSA. A senior administration official said officials from the intelligence agencies<br />
would be at the event but officials from the agencies like the FBI and DHS were tapped to speak<br />
because they interact directly with the public to discuss cyber issues.