DATE: Wednesday, June 11, 1997              TAG: 9706110466

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   72 lines

THE STATE OF PREPAREDNESSTOP THINKERS IN DEFENDING GOVERNMENT INSTALLATIONS SHARE SECRETS WITH INDUSTRY AT A BEACH SYMPOSIUM.

If you were a terrorist trying to invade the Security Technology Symposium this week at the Cavalier Hotels, they'd know you were coming a mile away.

Four to five miles away if it was nighttime and Agema Infrared Systems had one of its $130,000-plus tracking systems set up.

Maybe, then, a terrorist could hide in a box on a truck delivering lunch? Not if the Department of Defense had its ``heartbeat detector'' scanning delivery trucks.

Dozens of the country's foremost thinkers in defending government installations are on hand this week to swap lessons with private industry about how to buffer themselves from both physical and computer intrusions.

Breeches in the past few years in countries thought to be immune from terrorism have heightened interest in security. The release of toxic gas in the Tokyo subway system. The bombing of the Atlanta Olympics. The blasts in Oklahoma City and at the World Trade Center in New York.

But this year's event at the Cavalier Hotels marks the 13th annual symposium sponsored by the Security Technology Division of the American Defense Preparedness Association. The theme this year offers a network twist: How can a government agency or a business widely distribute information and still protect it from the wrong eyes?

Government agencies have been working on this precarious balancing act for years. The emergence the past two years of corporate computer networks that connect far-flung operations has brought security issues into offices and boardrooms.

An example? Boeing Co. designed its 777 by collaborating on a network with vendors, Japanese customers and its own engineers, said Guy Copeland, technology director at Computer Sciences Corp. in Falls Church.

Computer Sciences Corp. has been on the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee since it was formed in 1982. President Clinton two years ago asked that committee to examine the country's infrastructure - the telecommunications, financial services, transportation and electrical power networks.

NSTAC recently completed a report on the electrical power networks and ``did not find any even anecdotal evidence of a cyberintrusion,'' Copeland said.

But the electric companies are about to go through what telecommunications companies are going through now - deregulation. That will require the companies to share critical information, then turn around and compete with each other and electricity brokers.

That will make previously private information available in a database, probably on the Internet. An upstart electricity broker would then be able to find out how much it costs to transmit energy from point A to point B, Copeland said.

``Then, they could also find which transmission line carries the most power into New York City,'' he said, ``and could do some damage with that.''

Edward J. McCallum, director of the office of safeguards and security with the U.S. Department of Energy, said the department is working on an alarm system that would detect when someone tries to penetrate its Wide Area Network.

``This system can warn you if it is happening and, if you deem fit, shut the system down, take you off line, or change servers,'' McCallum said.

The Department of Energy would like to set up the alarm system on its own computer networks, then release the technology without ``some bells and whistles'' to the public.

``I believe this alarm system for PCs is a major breakthrough,'' McCallum said. ``It may be among the products that's come out of our labs in the past 10 years that's changed the way we do business.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

The bombing that took place in Centennial Park in Atlanta during the

1996 Olympic Games again brought home to Americans the fact that

they are not immune to terrorism.

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