I'm happy to announce that several weeks ago the Executive Officers approved a plan for a new University-wide IT security effort. The plan was based on work done through the IT Commons, and calls for the creation of an IT Security Executive Committee and IT Security Office. The Executive Committee will oversee policy development and priority setting, and the Security Office will coordinate and facilitate campus-wide security efforts and incident response.
James Hilton (Assoc Provost for Academic, Info & Instructional Tech) and I will provide overall direction and support for this new security effort, but administratively, the new IT Security Office will report to MAIS.
In the next week we will be posting the position of "U-M Chief IT Security Officer." This person will oversee the new IT Security Office, and be responsible for working collaboratively with the University on various security initiatives and efforts. I have decided that it makes most sense to have the new Chief IT Security Officer report directly to Bill Wrobleski for day-to-day management, so that James and I can focus our attention on security policy, strategic planning and priority setting for IT security at the University.
In the upcoming months you will see the following activities occur:
- Hiring of two new positions into the IT Security Office.
- Creation of a staff-sharing program with other University units to help develop and leverage campus security knowledge.
- Naming of the IT Security Executive Committee.
- Announcements of initiatives on which the new team will work.
I think it's wonderful that various University units and the Executive Officers came together to make this a reality. Rarely can such fundamental agreement and cooperation be demonstrated by such diverse organizations. It is good indication of the potential of the ITCommons. To learn more about the Commons, visit www.umich.edu/itcommons/.
IT Security is an area in which I have been particularly interested in the last few years, so I'm excited and honored to be able to oversee this effort. It promises to be a lot of work, but should bring a great deal of satisfaction.
Expect to see much more communication on this in the future.
Laura