Cyber Security The Focus Of 2-Day Summit In Troy

TROY (WWJ) - The subject of cyber security is the focus of a two-day summit that began Tuesday in the city of Troy, involving members of the military and local automotive programmers and suppliers.

Lt. Matthew Legler with the U.S. Naval Sea-Systems Command, says the synergy is a natural one.

"There's a lot of common hardware, software through all of the systems - a lot of the systems on ships are engineered out of commercial off-the-shelf technologies, obviously we customize them to some degree. So a lot of the fundamental software, hardware are similar," said Legler.

Ray Richards, program manager with the Pentagon, says the military is good at crafting cutting edge systems because they run on the "absolutely can not fail" philosophy.

"As our civilian systems become more and more reliant on technology and we have autonomy that runs our cars, runs our houses, runs the power grid -- we are now getting to the point where we can't have those systems fail," he says.

The 3rd Annual Cyber Security Summit, organized by the Michigan chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association, resumes Wednesday inside of the Troy Marriott.