Government Information Security Podcast

In an exclusive interview, Katz discusses:

Katz is a prominent figure in the network security discipline. Since 1985, he has served as the senior security executive for Citibank/Citigroup, JP Morgan, and most recently Merrill Lynch - and has been a force in raising the visibility and shaping the direction of the security industry at industry and government levels.

Deeply respected within both the financial services and security industries, Katz has testified to Congress on information security issues and was appointed as the Financial Services Sector Coordinator for Critical Infrastructure Protection by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Other credentials include: Founder and Chairman of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center; Chairman of the American Bankers Association Information Systems Security Committee; Vice Chair, Financial Services Roundtable-BITS Security and Risk Assessment Committee; member of the New York Clearinghouse Banks Data Security Officers Committee; and member of the Securities Industry Association Information Security Committee.

Earlier this year, Gilligan - president of the consultancy Gilligan Group - led a consortium of federal agencies and private organizations in developing the Consensus Audit Guidelines that define the most critical security controls to protect federal IT systems and coauthored the influential Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, that's helping shape federal government IT security policy.

In this second of a two-part interview with GovInfoSecurity.com Managing Editor Eric Chabrow, Gilligan explains the importance of the Consensus Audit Guidelines and how so-called red teams are critical in identifying vulnerabilities in government IT systems.

In the first part of the interview, Gilligan explains the importance of core configuration, and the challenges the government faces in expanding the program to other types of information and communication technologies.

Gilligan spent a quarter century in the government workforce, and also served as CIO of the Energy Department.

Embezzlement has become the nation's favorite financial crime -- and losses attributed to embezzlement are greater than those from all other financial crimes combined. Understanding the crime of embezzlement is critical to every investigator. In this exclusive interview in advance of his new webinar series, Dana Turner discusses:

Turner is a security practitioner with Security Education Systems -- a research, consulting and training firm located near San Antonio, Texas.

He has served as a law enforcement officer in several capacities -- including the investigation of business and banking crimes; as a community college instructor and administrator in both the law enforcement and business management fields; and as a program development specialist and trainer for private businesses, governmental agencies and professional associations. He is the author of the Financial Institution Security Library and he also has served as an instructor in both the FFIEC's White Collar Crime Conference and Web Banking - Payment Systems Risk Conference.

While Air Force chief information officer, John Gilligan initiated the process that led to the highly praised Federal Desktop Core Configuration, in which personal computers purchased by the government must be preconfigured to included specified security controls.

In the first of a two-part interview with GovInfoSecurity.com managing editor Eric Chabrow, Gilligan explains the importance of core configuration, and the challenges the government faces in expanding the program to other types of information and communication technologies.

A primary barrier, Gilligan says, is overcoming the culture of each agency deciding how it deems best to procure and secure its IT. "The term personal computer is just more than a description of a particular brand of machine, but it is really how people think of it. It is my computer, it's my organization, and no one outside will tell me how to operate," Gilligan says.

Gilligan also served as CIO at the Energy Department, and now heads his own consulting firm, the Gilligan Group. But he remains a big influence on government IT. He led a consortium of federal agencies and private organizations in developing the Consensus Audit Guidelines that define the most critical security controls to protect federal IT systems and coauthored the influential Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, that's helping shape federal cybersecurity policy.

"People have their own domains, and they're the lord of their domains, and that's where they feel comfortable," says Rowley, who's been on the job since last September. "Part of that is a trust issue, as well. There's now an office of CISO in the state, and that's new to people. That involves change, and as we all know, change is difficult."

In an interview with GovInforSecurity.com Managing Editor Eric Chabrow, Rowley discusses how she plans to change old habits by fostering an information security culture in Vermont, as well as working to codify information assurance policies and procedures and looking to Washington for guidance and money.

Rowley, in the interview, makes reference to the state of Vermont's website, aimed at educating citizens and government employees on information security. Click here to see that site.

This is the belief of Gerald Masson, Director of Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, and in an exclusive interview he discusses:

Masson received his PhD from Northwestern University in 1971. He has developed and taught numerous graduate and undergraduate courses addressing various aspects of the field of computer networking and systems architecture. He has published over 150 technical papers, co-authored two books and is an inventor on six patents. His research addresses a range of issues dealing with the foundations and implementations of distributed systems regarding issues such as survivability, real-time performance monitoring techniques, and security mechanisms used for network access. His research has been widely cited as well as implemented and utilized for critical infrastructure government and commercial applications.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is among the few government agencies actively involved in cloud computing. In this interview, Henry Sienkiewicz, technical program advisor in DISA's Computing Services Directorate, discusses how DISA:

These are among the findings of Verizon's new 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Peter Tippett, VP of Technology and Innovation at Verizon Business, discusses:

Tippett is the chief scientist of the security product testing and certification organization, ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon Business. An information security pioneer, Tippett has led the computer security industry for more than 20 years, initially as a vendor of security products, and over the past 16 years, as a key strategist. He is widely credited with creating the first commercial anti-virus product that later became Norton AntiVirus.

Regina Phelps is an internationally recognized expert in the field of emergency management and continuity planning. With over 26 years of experience, she has provided consultation and educational speaking services to clients in four continents. She is founder of Emergency Management & Safety Solutions, a consulting company specializing in emergency management, continuity planning and safety.

Resources

To this point, information security professionals have been generalists. Going forward, they'll have to be specialists. At least this is the opinion of John Rossi, professor of systems management/information assurance.

In an exclusive interview on the future of the information security profession, Rossi discusses:

Rossi is a Professor of Systems Management/Information Assurance in the Information Operations and Assurance Department at the National Defense University (NDU) Information Resources Management College (IRMC). Prior to joining the NDU/IRMC faculty, he was a computer scientist for information security, research, and training with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Headquarters. He was Security Division Manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Nuclear Weapons Production Security Assessments Program and National Program Manager for Computer Security Certification and Accreditation (C&A) with the U.S. Department of Defense during Desert Storm.