President Hennessy opened the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection this morning with remarks on cybersecurity and Stanford’s role in the effort.

“The problems we face have changed dramatically,” he said, talking about how the cybersecurity threat has transitioned from lone hackers to professional cybercriminals.

Stanford’s ongoing Cybersecurity Initiative makes the University an ideal setting for collaboration between industry, government and academia.

“The Stanford Cyber Initiative is already bringing together experts from a range of disciplines,” Hennessy said. “It is convening leaders from business, government, and the academy, and developing new policy solutions and bringing this knowledge into the classroom.”

Stanford’s ability to bring a new approach to problems faced by government and academia was echoed by Lisa Monaco, the homeland security advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama.

“It’s not just the weather that brought us out here to do the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection,” she opened. “Stanford is a nursery for innovation.”

Monaco added that her visit to the Stanford d.School on Thursday reinforced this view.

“I got the opportunity to spend some time with the most innovative minds I have encountered in a long time at the d.School,” she said.

Hennessy shared similar views in his earlier remarks about the cooperation between government and the private sector.

“Stanford’s proximity and sustained relationship with Silicon Valley will help contribute,” he said. “Government is a crucial contributor, helping to identify vulnerabilities [and] improve laws…Today’s White House summit is an extra opportunity to bring extra light on the issue. It is a tremendous opportunity for us to work together.”

“It struck me that that type of collaboration is the only way we are going to be able to tackle the very difficult challenges and all-consuming nature of the threat,” Monaco said.

Increased information sharing between government and the private sector is one of the goals of the White House’s new cybersecurity policy.

“[We have] one message to private sector,” said Monaco. “We want to work together. Neither of us can do this alone.”

Contact Nitish Kulkarni at nitishk2 ‘at’ stanford.edu.