Council's Report Connects Competitiveness, Security

By Heather Greenfield

National Journal

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Council on Competitiveness has trumpeted the concept that security is an issue that affects U.S. competitiveness in the global market. It has encouraged policymakers to consider not just physical protection but also how to protect the U.S. economy by getting critical infrastructures running after disasters.

The council drove the point home Monday in a new economic report on integrating competitiveness and security. The report said the ability to "bounce back from disruption will be a competitive differentiator for companies and countries alike in the 21st century."

The report mentioned recent disasters, including the August 2003 power blackout in New York that cost more than $6 billion.

During a seminar where the report was released, business executives also talked about the increasing costs of cyber attacks and data breaches.

Thomas O'Neill, the principal at Sandler O'Neill, said his financial services firm was at nearly the top of the second tower of the World Trade Center and lost one-third of its employees during the 2001 attacks. He said many precautions taken after the 1993 attempt at blowing up the same building, including backing up all computer data, helped his firm continue operations days later.

O'Neill said his company was able to bounce back from that attack, but a data-security breach could put it out of business. He said his company constantly monitors for that and has a group that tries to break into its computers to get information.

Susan Bailey, vice president of global network operations planning at AT&T, said her company processes 10 quadrillion bytes of data every business day. With that amount of data, she said, "it's hard to imagine what threat AT&T doesn't worry about in some shape or form."

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