Congressional Staffers Headed to Stanford for Cybersecurity Training

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Thirty congressional staffers are set to get a primer on cybersecurity challenges and countermeasures from some of Silicon Valley’s leading academic, industry and public policy practitioners as part of an intensive three-day workshop to be held at Stanford University from August 17–19.

“Cybersecurity threats are growing more serious and evolving rapidly,” said Amy Zegart, CISAC co-director and Davies Family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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“Stanford is in a unique position to bring academic, industry, and policy leaders together to develop new ideas to tackle these challenges.”

The second annual Congressional Cyber Boot Camp is an invitation-only event that will feature lectures from industry experts including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, Palantir Technologies Global head of Cyber Security Melody Hildebrandt, and Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos.

Participants will also hear from some of the top academics in the field, including CISAC senior research scholar and Hoover Institution research fellow Herb Lin, and CISAC affiliates Dan Boneh, John Villasenor and John Mitchell.

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High-level former government officials will brief participants on real-world and policy problems around cybersecurity issues. Speakers include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute, and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and current director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Michael McFaul.

Sessions will cover a wide range of topics, from the fundamentals of cybersecurity, to how to think like an attacker, domestic and international legal considerations, and the interplay between cybersecurity and civil liberties.

Zegart will lead a live, hands-on simulation of a cyber attack, with staffers playing the roles of corporate executives responding to the crisis.

“The boot camp is an invaluable experience that brought congressional staff together to deliberate the complex cyber policy issues we’re facing on Capitol Hill and to hear from across academic disciplines different ways to think about these tough problems,” said past participant Brett DeWitt, staff director of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies.

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“Last year’s boot camp provided critical knowledge that has since empowered us to make more well-informed cyber policy decisions and directly supported Congress coming together last December to pass five foundational pieces of cyber security legislation.”

The three-day conference will conclude with a tour of the Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park.

Although the cyber workshop is by invitation only, Hoover, Stanford, and CISAC will provide live updates on Twitter throughout the event. Follow the conversation at #StanfordCyber.

The event will be jointly hosted by CISAC, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution, and is co-sponsored by the Stanford Cyber Initiative.