Meridian 2009, Washington D.C.
2010-01-25
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hosted the Fifth Annual Meridian Conference in 2009 in Washington DC. The theme of the 2009 conference was “Critical Information Infrastructure Protection: Our Shared Responsibility.” Meridian 2009 focused on understanding CIIP challenges, bridging the gap between the role of policymakers and the technical community, utilizing cyber exercises to advance CIIP objectives, and building CIIP awareness within all sectors, from industry to academia. Conference speakers included global leaders in cybersecurity policy with the keynote address given by Secretary Janet Napolitano of DHS. With over thirty-nine countries, Meridian 2009 empowered senior policymakers to work together to address information infrastructure protection challenges. In addition, participants built strategies to promote greater security both domestically and internationally. An outcome of the conference was the development of the Collaborative Awareness Raising Activity Working Group led by the United States. This group will focus on common efforts that cross culture that would enable Meridian members to coordinate initiatives and create common messaging on raising cybersecurity awareness among all constituents and emphasizing that cybersecurity is “Our Shared Responsibility.”
More information:
http://www.meridian2009.org/
Meridian 2008, Singapore
2009-10-22
The 2008 Meridian Conference was a huge success despite the gathering storm-clouds of the recession. It was the first time that the Conference was held in Asia and there were good representations from the South-East Asia region, including some countries new to the Meridian Process. The theme of the Conference was ‘CIIP in Action’. In-line with this theme, a key highlight of the Conference was the site visits to the critical sectors (i.e. Energy, Transport and Telecommunications). Through these site visits, the delegates were able to interact with the operators of the CIIs and gain first-hand experience of ‘CIIP in Action’. Speakers from the critical sectors as well as Government policy makers from around the world provided stimulating presentations and engaged in lively workshops around the conference theme. As the conference host, Singapore also launched the Working Group on International Collaboration on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (ICONIC). The Conference also selected Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) as the host for the 2010 Meridian Conference.
Meridian 2007, Stockholm
2008-10-01
The conference held in Stockholm provided the opportunity to discuss the diverse range of issues arising from globalization and the impact of new technologies that affect the development of national policies for the protection of critical services and the underlying information infrastructure. The conference featured several themes such as the application of the G8 CIIP principles to the development of CIIP policies. The emerging relationship between CIIP and critical infrastructure protection (CIP) polices and the challenges of securing process control systems critical components in most national infrastructure assets. This last topic - on process control systems - is new at the Meridian conference. As such, this conference featured a wide spectrum of security workshops on control systems to provide government policy delegates an opportunity for these sectors to be explained in a straight forward and comprehensive manner.
Meridian 2006, Budapest
2009-07-08
The Budapest conference continued promulgating the Meridian message from 2005 year’s Meridian conference inaugural event to examine the “connecting and protecting” aspects for each country’s critical information infrastructure (CII). This conference aimed to reinforce Meridian as a process whereby the good practices shared and new cooperative relationships fostered in the conference hall are taken back to delegates’ governments for further development. Effective protection of CII derives from sharing information between governments and the private sector, as well as between governments internationally, for good risk assessments that in turn better inform policy decisions. Meridian conference provided a unique forum for senior officials involved in policymaking on critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP) to examine the opportunities for improving such connections.
Meridian 2005, Greenwich
2008-06-25
The conference agreed that the unique gathering of national CIIP representatives had achieved a valuable momentum that should not be lost, and ways would be explored to further this. It was agreed that the conference had helped raise awareness of the state of each country’s CIIP organisational and political efforts and achievements. In particular it had helped to raise awareness in some countries of the importance of CIIP and its differentiation from the more widely recognised CIP issues. It was also agreed that the conference had been an excellent opportunity to make links to other countries to share mutual concerns, understand different approaches, and enable cross-border communication on CIIP issues where and when the need arises