Larstan's The Black Book On: Coporate Security

Corporate Security > About the Authors

Tony Alagna, Founder & CTO, Wholesecurity

Tony is the visionary behind the patent-pending behavioral technology that drives Confidence Online’s proven eavesdropping threat detection. Tony founded WholeSecurity to address the growing security needs of companies as they moved their operations online. He is considered an expert in information security and specializes in the area of malicious code. As a sought after public speaker, Tony often addresses executive forums, speaks at security events, and serves on conference panels. He actively advises lawmakers, industry analysts, financial organizations, and corporations on cyber-threats and how to defend against them. Much of his career in the computer security industry is under non-disclosure, but notably, he led elite teams of security field personnel in Annapolis, Maryland for an organization which performed attack and penetration testing with the military and federal agencies.

Joyce Brocaglia, President and CEO, Alta Associates, Inc.

Joyce Brocaglia is president and CEO of Alta Associates, Inc., the leading executive recruitment firm in the information security industry. Since 1986, the firm has served as a trusted advisor for organizations seeking top industry talent and has played a key role in building corporate information security organizations, developing professional services practices and growing security product start-ups.

In September 2003, Information Security magazine honored Joyce with a “Women of Vision” award naming her one of the 25 most influential women in the information security industry. Also in 2003, Joyce founded the Executive Women’s Forum on Information Security, Privacy and Risk Management. The EWF is a venue where the most senior women in the security industry gather to share ideas and develop trust-based relationships.

Eva Chen, CEO, Trend Micro

Eva Chen, a co-founder of Trend Micro, was appointed CEO in January of 2005. Prior to that she has served as chief technology officer since 1996 and executive vice president since May 1988. As CTO, Eva Chen is responsible for overall product strategy and technology direction, including research on future innovations, and product management and product development groups. Under her guidance, Trend Micro has earned a reputation for innovation and groundbreaking products including Trend Micro InterScan VirusWall™, Trend Micro PC-cillin™, and Trend Micro ScanMail™. Chen contributed heavily to seven patents, including those pertaining to the detection and removal of viruses in email and on computer networks.

Chen has also received industry recognition. In April 2001, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Secure Computing Magazine, in recognition of her thirteen years of contribution to the advancement of antivirus technology and computer security. Chen has written numerous articles on the subject of Internet security. In April 2000, she won the Judges Award from Secure Computing for her article, " Poison Java." She also received the prestigious Tribute to Women in the Industry (TWIN) award from the YWCA. In 2003, Chen was named one of the top five most influential “Women of Vision” by Information Security magazine.

Maria Cirino, Senior Vice President, Managed Security Services, VeriSign, Inc.

Maria Cirino has 19 years of technology leadership experience, including executive roles in worldwide sales, marketing and business development. As the senior vice president of VeriSign’s Managed Security Services (MSS) division, Cirino is responsible for the end-to-end operation and marketing of the company’s global MSS business. Prior to an acquisition by Verisign in 2004, Cirino was CEO and co-founder of Guardent, Inc., an early entrant and leading MSS provider. At Guardent, Cirino set the stage for long-range value: devising a sound business model; scaling to engage Global 2000 clients and continually enhancing the company’s value proposition by fostering innovation, instilling sound disciplines and creating a values-based culture focused on passion and execution. As a pioneer in a nascent technology category, Guardent subsequently emerged as the market leader in the MSS space..

Prior to founding Guardent, Cirino served as a key member of the executive teams at Shiva Corporation (now Intel Corporation) and i-Cube, Inc. (now Razorfish, Inc.). In her management roles at Shiva and i-Cube, Cirino prominently affected rapid growth and success by building new sales and distribution channels and consistently growing revenues beyond expectations. Cirino’s leadership experience extends to successful mergers, acquisitions and IPOs, having played a principal role in building these companies into successful, publicly held enterprises.

Cirino has received numerous industry accolades. Most recently the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council (MTC) named Cirino the 2004 “CEO of the Year” for her leadership role at Guardent. Other honors include: named one of the top 100 most influential women in Boston by Boston Magazine; honored by Information Security Magazine as one of the top 25 women in Information Security; selected by the Boston Business Journal as one of the area’s top “40 under 40” technology executives and inducted by Women's Business Magazine into the “Women’s Business Hall of Fame.

Colin Elliott , Global Practice Leader, Security, Schlumberger

Colin Elliott is the Global Practice Leader in the Enterprise Security practice at Schlumberger. His areas of focus span all areas including physical and logical security considerations, ISO17799 assessments, and PKI design, and implementation and integration using smart cards for the oil and gas industry.

Rami Elron, Senior Architect, BMC Software

He has the responsibility for the design aspects concerning BMC Software’s security solution, Control-SA, and the solution’s next generation architecture and features. He has over 15 years of experience in computing infrastructure and development environments as a developer, project manager, system architect and lecturer. Extensive background in Windows and Java technologies, application development, UI design, identity management and security practices, system infrastructure and implementation of frameworks like MSF. Extensive knowledge in identity management and security management technologies, specifications, architecture design and solution applications.

Stephen W. Foster, CISO, Avaya

Stephen W. Foster (Steve) is the Chief Information Security Officer at Avaya. Steve is responsible for insuring the highest level of protection for Avaya’s information assets, which includes responsibility for information security architecture, design and implementation; corporate network security; Internet and intranet security and access control management. He will also provide initial design support to the Business Transformation team for applications and infrastructure security requirements. He is also responsible for helping to ensure that Avaya is in compliance with all rules, laws and regulations such as GLBA, Sarbanes-Oxley and SEC that effect information security.

Steve joins Avaya after a distinguished 20-year career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He retired form the FBI in March of 2000. During this career, he managed many International Investigations and established the New Jersey FBI “InfraGard” program. The “InfraGard” program, which is still in operation today, was established as an Information Security “Outreach” organization, which enhances the sharing of information between all levels of government and industry. He is currently an active member of the Board of Directors for the NJ Chapter. After leaving the FBI, Steve accepted a position as Director of Information Security for PayTrust Inc, a fast growing financial services company, which relocated to Chicago. Before coming to Avaya he was the Asst. VP of Information Security for TD Waterhouse Inc. the Brokerage arm of the Toronto Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada.

Dr. Jim Kennedy, Distinguished Member of the Consulting Staff - Security Practice, Lucent Worldwide Services

Dr. Jim Kennedy is Distinguished Member of Consulting Staff in the Security and Business Continuity Practice of Lucent Worldwide Services. In this position Dr. Kennedy is responsible to provide consulting services in information security and business continuity to a wide range of clients all over the world.

Dr. Kennedy has over twenty-five years of experience in the security and business continuity & disaster recovery fields and holds numerous certifications in network engineering, security, and business continuity. He has developed more than thirty business continuity and disaster recovery plans, planned or participated in over one hundred BC&DR plan tests, and has helped to coordinate three actual recovery operations during his 25 year career. He has worked in telecommunications, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, consulting, and chemical industry segments. Before rejoining Lucent in 2003 Dr. Kennedy held senior IT and network engineering, operations, and business assurance management roles with AM International, Exxon, EDS and Pfizer. He was also an adjunct professor where he taught college level courses in information security and business continuity & disaster recovery planning.

Mehrzad Mahdavi, Vice President, Enterprise Security Services, Schlumberger

As Vice President, Enterprise Security Services at Schlumberger, Dr. Mahdavi oversees global consulting and security services for enterprise clients in the energy industry. Previously, he was Vice President of Global Strategy and Consulting, providing strategic direction and M&A for all business units of Schlumberger Network and Infrastructure Solutions. He currently heads the global consulting services group offering end-to-end network and security solutions. Dr. Mahdavi was the founder of the information security business in Schlumberger. He built the information security business from ground up to a global major business line for Schlumberger.

George G. McBride, Senior Network Security Manager, Lucent Technologies

George G. McBride is a senior network security manager for Lucent Technologies. George’s responsibilities include managing the global risk assessment and penetration testing teams for Lucent Security as they perform risk assessments and penetration tests of business units, web and client applications, emerging technologies, networks and perimeters using numerous tools and methods. George has led the architecture development of secure network infrastructures for many of Lucent’s joint ventures, business partners and customers, including the overall management for network and computing system security for Lucent in its Asia Pacific and China regions. Additionally, George served as the lead in investigations of internal and external network abuses, and identified and implemented new hardware and software technologies to reduce costs and downtime in a secure environment. Prior to joining Lucent, George was a senior network security engineer with Global Integrity, and has worked as a software engineer as well as a civilian electronics engineer for the US Army.

George holds a master’s degree in Software Engineering, and a bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering, both from Monmouth University. He has presented as numerous industry events, including RSA Conferences, and provided training seminars for IEEE, ACM and Computer Society chapters locally.

Ron Moritz, Chief Security Strategist, Computer Associates

Ron Moritz is senior vice president and chief security strategist at CA. He is responsible for maintaining CA’s technical lead in world-class information security software by shaping the strategic direction of CA’s eTrust™ security solutions brand. Moritz joined CA after founding Moritz Technology Corporation, a management advisory firm serving emerging security technology companies and the venture capital community. Earlier, he served as senior vice president and CTO of Symantec Corporation and as CTO of Finjan Software. As an internationally recognized cyber security expert, Moritz is a spokesperson to the business community on security issues, solutions, and strategies. Moritz serves as co-chair of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Cyber Security Summit task force on Security Across the Software Development Life Cycle. He is also a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Homeland Security Policy Committee and co-chair of the subcommittee on Security and Privacy. Previously he served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the G8 meetings on international cybercrime and cyberterrorism.

Jim Nisbet, President & CEO, Tablus Inc.

Nisbet is the founder of Tablus. He has worked as both a product architect and developer since the start of the company. Prior to Tablus, Nisbet was the Senior Vice-President of Products and Technology for Semio Corporation, which provided content categorization solutions. Nisbet was the founder and Chief Technology Officer of DataTools, a database software tool company founded in 1991 and acquired by BMC Software in 1997. Before founding DataTools, Nisbet worked for Stanford University at the Center for Information Technology for over 15 years.

Jim Porell, Chief Architect for zSeries Software, IBM

Jim Porell is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Chief Architect for IBM’s mainframe software. He chairs the zSeries Software Design council which brings together all of IBM technology utilized in the deployment of customer solutions utilizing mainframe technology. Jim led the architecture for IBM’s Multi-Level Security technology for z/OS, including the database server, DB2. These became generally available in March, 2004, though the base technology dates back to 1987. Jim focuses on Security and Business Resilient solutions for customers. He has been consulting to government and commercial customers on secure computing infrastructure for ten years. He has participated in several government efforts ensuring the protection of critical computing infrastructure.

Howard Schmidt, CISO, eBay

Howard A. Schmidt has recently joined eBay as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer. He retired from the federal government after 31 years of public service. He was appointed by President Bush as the Vice Chair of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and as the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House in December 2001. Prior to the White House, Howard was chief security officer for Microsoft Corp., where his duties included CISO, CSO and overseeing the Security Strategies Group.

Joseph C. Seanor, Security Consulting Manager, Avaya

Joe joined the Avaya Enterprise Security Practice after having spent time working in the Federal Government, Intelligence Community and Private Sector. Joseph has been an Instructor at Learning Tree Corporation teaching security professionals about IDS and firewall deployment. He is a licensed Private Investigator and Computer Crime Investigator, and was the Senior Technical Security Investigator for America Online for seven years. There he investigated a number of cases involving hackers, intrusions, email threats, presidential threats and other crimes committed by AOL users or through the AOL network. Joseph has also worked for the Department of Justice, Telecommunications Security Staff in developing policy for the DOJ and components on computer hackers and computer security issues. Joseph also started CIBIR Corporation, a private investigations company he owns and founded, and Joseph still maintains a Private Investigation license. A member of the United States Air Force Reserve attached to the 459th TAW at Andrews AFB in the position of Legal Services Specialist, Joseph also spent 10 years at the Central Intelligence Agency working in computer-related assignments to both Counter-Narcotics and Counter-Intelligence.

Somesh Singh, Vice President and General Manager, Identity Management Business Unit, BMC Software

He joined BMC Software in 1997. 1997 through 1999 and again from 2001, he has had several executive positions at BMC, including vice president of operations for global sales and marketing organization, vice president of corporate operations, vice president of R&D and common development and his current position as vice president and general manager of Security Business Unit. The flagship product of his business unit is CONTROL SA, the leading identity management solution available in the market today. From 1999 through 2001 Somesh was President and Chief Operating officer of iVita Corporation, a Houston based asset management software startup he helped found.

Professor Salvatore Stolfo, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University

Salvatore J. Stolfo is professor of computer science at Columbia University and cofounder and chief scientific advisor of System Detection, Inc., makers of Recon. His research interests include intrusion- and anomaly-detection systems, data mining, and distributed systems. He has a BS in computational mathematics from Brooklyn College and a PhD from New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Michael Xie, Founder, CTO, Fortinet

Michael Xie has more than 10 years of experience in the network security area, having successfully designed many industry-leading security products for companies large and small.

Xie currently oversees all development, engineering and support for Fortinet’s products, which include the company’s ASIC-accelerated FortiGate antivirus firewalls, FortiOS operating system, and management and reporting systems. Under his guidance, Fortinet has successfully introduced more than 25 innovative products since 2002. These products have garnered numerous prestigious industry awards – including the 2004 Security Product of the Year Award from Network Computing Magazine and the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year – and have catapulted Fortinet to become the security market leader in Unified Threat Management.

Previously, Xie held positions as Vice President of Engineering for ServGate, Software Director and Architect at NetScreen, and Security Architect for Milkyway. He holds multiple U.S. patents in the computer and network security area. Mr. Michael Xie has an M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba as well as B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University in China.