By Bruce H. Nearon

CPAs, auditors and consultants often find weaknesses in internal control and opportunities to improve business processes; however, clients must often purchase new hardware, software and services to implement the CPA’s recommendations. Invariably clients ask for vendor recommendations, and auditors are in a precarious position when they have only a single reliable vendor or, worse, none to recommend. Management is in the same position and will more likely make a better IT- purchase decision if they have several competing vendor proposals.

IT vendors are always looking to meet decision influencers like CPAs and IT purchasers like CPAs’ clients. The purpose of the IT Vendor CPA Breakfast is to allow these groups to meet in an intimate one-to-one setting.

The breakfast will feature guest speaker Steven Bellovin of AT&T Research Labs. Mr. Bellovin is co-author of Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker, a definitive book on firewalls. His presentation will be on realistic security and will cover the following topics:

• Real-world impediments to implementing security policies
• Security threats
• Security defenses
• Examples of security policies that fail and how to make them work

Date: Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2003
Time: 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Presenter: Steven Bellovin
Location: Yale Club, Vanderbilt Avenue and 44th Street, New York City

Additional Information

The IT Vendor CPA Breakfast is a presentation organized by the New York State Society of CPAs’ Technology Assurance Committee (TA). The cost of the breakfast is $50, payable to the NYSSCPA.

NYSSCPA members will earn one hour of CPE credit free of charge. A fee of $15 is payable to the Foundation for Accounting Education for nonmembers wishing to receive CPE credit for the event.

More information can be found on the TA Committee by going to www.nysscpa.org, clicking on the Find Committees tab on the left-hand side of the screen and scrolling down to the TA Committee link.

Registration

To register for this event, please call Vanessa Aldebot directly at (212) 719-8386. Advance registration is encouraged because seating is limited.

For additional information, contact Gary E. Carpenter at (315) 487-4567 or gcarpenter-eit@worldnet.att.net or Bruce H. Nearon at (973) 403-6955 or bnearon@jhcohn.com.

About the Presenter

Steven Bellovin is an AT&T Fellow in the Network Services Research Lab at AT&T Labs Research in Florham Park, N.J., and conducts research on networks, security and the reasons for their incompatibility. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Bellovin is co-author, with Bill Cheswick, of the 1994 book Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and his master’s and doctorate degrees in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

While a graduate student, Mr. Bellovin helped create USENET and was awarded the 1995 Usenix Lifetime Achievement Award for singular contributions to the Unix community in both intellectual achievement and service.

Mr. Bellovin is active in the IETF, especially the security area, and was a member of the Internet Architecture Board from 1996 to 2002. He currently is security area co-director and, hence, a member of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). He also is chair of the IEEE symposium on security and privacy, popularly known as the “Oakland” conference. Mr. Bellovin can be reached at smb@research.att.com.

Acknowledgments

J.H. Cohn LLP and Carpenter Information Technologies helped provide the funding and resources for the facility, food, marketing and publicity, and administration of this event