A drinks reception will follow the talk. Register for your free place by email to securityscience@imperial.ac.uk
The cyber threat represents one of the most complex, most novel, and most serious disruptive threats to security in the past sixty years. As these threats to cyber space become increasingly more sophisticated, as bad actors turn to the internet to wreak havoc, and as cyber networks continue to act as the backbone of global commerce and government, it is imperative that policymakers develop strong strategies for dealing with the cyber domain.
Doing so effectively will require societies to answer key legal and ethical questions. When is a cyber attack a genuine act of war? What is the line between the development of offensive versus defensive cyber capabilities? How can law enforcement most effectively combat cyber crime and cyber terrorism while maintaining civil liberties and privacy?
Biography
As Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security from 2005-09, the Hon. Michael Chertoff led a 218,000-person department with a budget of $50 billion. Mr Chertoff developed and implemented border security and immigration policy, promulgated homeland security regulations, transformed FEMA into an effective organisation following Hurricane Katrina, and spearheaded a national cyber security strategy. He also served periodically on the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, and on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
On leaving government service, Mr Chertoff founded the Chertoff Group, to provide high-level strategic counsel to corporate and government leaders on a broad range of security issues, from risk identification and prevention to preparedness, response and recovery.
Before heading up the Department of Homeland Security, Mr Chertoff served as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Earlier, during more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, he investigated and prosecuted cases of political corruption, organised crime, corporate fraud and terrorism, including the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Mr Chertoff is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1975) and Harvard Law School (1978). In addition to his role at Chertoff Group, Mr Chertoff is also senior of counsel at Covington & Burling LLP, and a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group.
About the Vincent Briscoe Lecture
The Institute for Security Science and Technology’s annual lecture is named in honour of H.V.A. (Vincent) Briscoe, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Imperial College London from 1932-55. Records indicate Briscoe provided the first independent scientific advice to the Security Service in 1915, on the subject of secret German writing, and continued in service throughout the inter-war years and during and after the Second World War.