LI business focusing on cyber security, fraud

With cybercrime and financial fraud soaring, more Long Island business people are joining InfraGard, a nonprofit that serves as a link between companies and the FBI.Brendan Healy of Garden City, president of the Long Island chapter of InfraGard, said the group has about 340 members, representing an increase of 16 percent this year.

Members, he said, include information-technology professionals, executives of security guard companies, and financial types.

"The purpose is to have an open forum with the public and private sectors" and to exchange ideas about cyber and other security issues, Healy said.

Quarterly meetings are held at different locations; the most recent was at the new Morrelly Homeland Security Center in Bethpage. Another recent meeting, held at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, was on the issue of health care fraud.

InfraGard got its start in 1993 in the FBI's Cleveland field office. There are now about 50 chapters nationwide, and some 40,000 members. To attend a meeting or join, go to infragard-li.net.

Not everyone is totally onboard. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the speech, privacy and technology program of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., said the ACLU has been "keeping an eye" on InfraGard. "We have not received any reports of anything untoward going on, but when you have an organization that seeks to organize private individuals into a law enforcement organization, that raises a lot of questions," Stanley said.

Maryann Goldman, a special agent at the FBI's Manhattan field office who helps oversee the program in the metro area, said InfraGard "is not a corporate tips program. It is the FBI's premier outreach program to try to better serve the private sector and keep the infrastructure safe from terrorists and major crime."