Cybersecurity Conference (2016) Speaker Profiles

NADA MARIE ANID, PH.D.
Dean, NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Nada Marie Anid, Ph.D., is the first female dean of NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences. In this role, she oversees more than 100 engineering and computing sciences faculty members and nearly 3,500 graduate and undergraduate students at campuses located in Manhattan and Old Westbury, N.Y., the Middle East, and China.

Anid embraces NYIT’s forward-thinking and applications-oriented mission and is working on several strategic partnerships between academia and the public and private sector, including the creation of NYIT’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC) and its three labs focusing on IT & cybersecurity, bio-engineering and health, and energy and green technologies. Anid also led the initiative that resulted in NYIT being designated by the NSA and DHS as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education.

Anid is committed to educating a new generation of engineers ready to address societal challenges identified in the White House Strategy for American Innovation and the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering. Long an advocate for women pursuing education and career opportunities in STEM fields, Anid is an active proponent of K-12 education that encourages girls to experience the thrill of discovery and design. She is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the LISTnet Diamond Award, which recognizes her significant contributions toward the advancement of women in technology on Long Island as well as for her professional achievements in the technology field.

Anid is a member of the Long Island Regional Council’s Education and Workforce Committee, the NY State STEM Education Collaborative, and the Intrepid Museum’s STEM Advisory Committee. A program evaluator for the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, she also holds leadership positions in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the U.S. Deans Engineering Council and its Public Policy Committee, among others. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy and is an expert reviewer for the federal government and several engineering journals.

Anid earned her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH-Stockholm).

Prior to joining NYIT, she was chair and graduate program director of the Chemical Engineering Department at Manhattan College.

GARY ALBAUGH
Deputy, Chief Information Officer, United States
Military Academy (USMA), West Point

Gary Albaugh received his Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Marist College before enlisting in the United States Army as an information systems operator and analyst. During his military service, Albaugh received the Army Commendation Medal (2nd Award), Army Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Meritorious Unit Commendation, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and Iraqi Campaign Medal w/ (2) Bronze Service Stars.

Albaugh also completed his Master of Science in Information Systems, Bachelor of Science in Marketing, and Master of Business Administration, and is currently completing his Master of Arts in Military History Capstone (Thesis).

After his military service, Albaugh continued his service as a civil servant, first as the deputy director at the Network Enterprise Center, Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, N.Y., and currently as the deputy–chief information officer at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Albaugh currently resides in Pennsylvania with his wife of 11 years and three children. He is active in the community with the Boy Scouts of America having earned his Eagle Scout as a youth. He also volunteers as an assistant for East Ramapo High School’s Boys Varsity Wrestling Team.

N. SERTAC ARTAN, PH.D.
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences

N. Sertac Artan is assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYIT School of Engineering and Computer Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from New York University (formerly Polytechnic University). Before joining NYIT, Artan was on the faculty of the New York University School of Engineering. He also worked as an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) design engineer and designed integrated circuits for commercial, academic, and military applications. Artan served on the organizing committees of the ACM/IEEE Symposium on Architectures for Networking and Communications Systems (ANCS), IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, and ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks. His current research interests include network security, embedded systems and circuits for medical devices, and biomedical signal processing for epilepsy.

ZIQIAN (CECILIA) DONG, PH.D.
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYIT. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from BeiHang University (formerly Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) in Beijing, China, and her M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, N.J. She was awarded the Hashimoto Prize for the best Ph.D. dissertation in Electrical Engineering at NJIT. She is the recipient of the 2006 and 2007 Hashimoto Fellowship for outstanding scholarship and the recipient of the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame Graduate Student Award for her inventions in network switches. She is also a recipient of the NYIT Presidential Engagement Award in Student Engagement in Research and Scholarship.

Dong’s research interests include architecture design and analysis of high-performance packet switches, data center networks, network security and forensics, wireless sensor networks, and assistive medical devices. She was associated with Networking Research Laboratory at NJIT and MySYNC Laboratory at Stevens Institute of Technology for her postdoctoral research. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in electrical engineering and computer science at different universities, and has supervised more than 250 electrical engineering students working on their capstone senior design projects at NYIT. She held consultant positions at organizations such as AT&T and BOC Gases. Dong holds four patents and three invention disclosures, and has authored 14 refereed journal publications, 30 conference publications, two book chapters, and numerous poster presentations with her students. She has invited both undergraduate and graduate students to work with her on various research projects and publications.

Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Motorola, National Collegiate Alliance for Inventors and Innovators, Xilinx, and NYIT. She is the principal investigator for NYIT’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), funded by NSF to engage undergraduates in mobile device and network security research. She also serves as faculty mentor for NYIT’s student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. She is a senior member of the IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Women in Engineering, and is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE); ACM; and Environmental Sensing, Networking, and Decision-Making (ESND) technical committee. She has served on the technical program committees for IEEE HPSR, IEEE Sarnoff, IEEE GreenCom, and ChinaCom, and as a reviewer for IEEE journals, conferences, and NSF panels.

RICHARD W. DOWNING
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice

Richard W. Downing was selected to serve as acting deputy assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice in September 2015. He previously served as principal deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. During his tenure, Downing supervised the prosecution of hacking, identity theft, and intellectual property crimes; oversaw policy and litigation governing the constitutional and statutory rules for the collection of electronic evidence; and supervised the development of international law enforcement cooperation related to cybercrime and intellectual property crime. He participated in the drafting and negotiation of amendments to federal laws related to computer crime, computer security, and electronic evidence, including the USA Patriot Act (2001) and the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act (2008).

Downing joined the Department of Justice in 1999. Prior to that, he served as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He graduated from Stanford Law School and received his B.A. from Yale University.

IDAN UDI EDRY
Chief Executive Officer, Nation-E

Idan Udi Edry is a distinguished veteran in the fields of information technology and data security, as well as an experienced leader in driving innovation and execution at scale. Prior to joining Nation-E, Edry gained significant industry experience as head of Data and Security for Pelephone, Israel’s leading cellular operator. He led special strategic projects for numerous governmental agencies and organizations, working closely with high ranking officials. His career trajectory at Pelephone allowed Edry to establish himself not only as an expert professionally but also as a customer-facing business leader.

Edry gained unique skills and expertise while serving as an officer in the Air Force, ultimately reaching the rank of captain. For more than eight years, he led hundreds of professionally-trained military personnel, building and operating advanced information systems. Edry has mastered multiple disciplines and has accumulated 13 formal certifications from the world’s most renowned IT and Telecommunications institutes.

EDWARD FOK
Transportation Technologies Specialist, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation

Edward Fok is a transportation technologies specialist at the Federal Highway Administration. He helps agencies operating the National Highway Systems deploy advanced technologies and modern processes to meet their missions. He also identifies operational gaps and technology opportunities for researchers and developers so that new tools can be created to improving safety and mobility. Fok spends a great deal of effort to improve cybersecurity and resilience of current and future surface transportation systems. He has 27 years of experience in the industry and has an educational background in mechanical and electrical engineering.

ABSTRACT: This discussion examines some of the challenges faced by the surface transportation community when it comes to cyber resiliency. This is an industry in the process of reinventing itself and its products and platforms–from mechanical timers and fire alarm cabling, to networked, open source computational platforms that are supervised by cloud-based, real-time predictive management systems. Many of these systems are still protected by the same pin-type tumbler lock used when The Brady Bunch was on the air. In this presentation, Fok will share some initial ideas on how operating agencies and industry can address this highly dynamic challenge. This is intended to be a technically oriented discussion; USDOT policies will not be discussed.

JIM GARRETT
GCFA, CISSP, MBA, Chief Information Security Officer, New York State Enterprise Information Security Office, NYS Office of Information Technology Services

Jim Garrett, GCFA, CISSP, M.B.A., serves as the chief information security officer (CISO) for the State of New York (NYS). In this role, Garrett oversees the NYS Enterprise Information Security Office (EISO) within the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS). The EISO develops and evaluates compliance with statewide information security policies; provides cyber incident response assistance; distributes real-time advisories and alerts; provides managed security services; and implements statewide information security training and exercises for state and local government.

Prior to joining ITS, Garrett served as the first chief information security officer for 3M, where he led the certification of the 3M Data Center to the ISO27001 standard.

Garrett has a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara; a certificate in international studies from the University of Vienna; and an M.B.A. from Marylhurst University, Oregon. He is also a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst, and Certified Lead ISO27001 Assessor.

ABSTRACT: New York State is a complex enterprise of agencies and institutions that must satisfy multiple state and federal regulatory requirements. To achieve regulatory compliance and maintain security best practices, New York State has adopted the NIST 800.53 and ISO27001/2 frameworks. These frameworks ensure industry and internationally recognized security practices are in place to measure risk and to support regulatory requirements. Creating a compliance baseline using NIST 800.53 and ISO27001/2 standards helps New York State identify areas of improvement and prioritize initiatives to meet regulatory requirements.

ABHRAJIT GHOSH
Scientific Research Manager, Vencore Labs, Inc.

Abhrajit Ghosh is a cybersecurity researcher with more than 15 years experience. Over the course of his career, he has served as both a leader and an innovator. Software engineering teams led by him have developed unique systems designed to detect intrusions into cloud services and attacks targeting large scale IP networks. Ghosh holds 14 U.S. patents and has authored more than 35 refereed articles in technical journals and conference proceedings.

MARK GRAFF
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tellagraff; Former Chief Information Security Officer, NASDAQ

Mark Graff is a seasoned chief information security officer (CISO) and a cybersecurity practitioner and thought leader; currently, he is a talk radio host of Cyber Matters with Mark Graff. Graff was one of the first people to understand how important it is to keep us safe from cyberattacks. For almost 30 years, he has defended critical assets, including the electrical grid, stock exchanges, nuclear weapons facilities, and even a few famous museums. He recently served for three years as the CISO for NASDAQ and nine years for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, before returning to private practice as the founder and CEO of Tellagraff, LLC.

Graff has briefed the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon, and many top national security installations and corporations on issues related to cybersecurity. He has appeared on CNN, CNN International, CBS, and other major networks, and has delivered keynote addresses to audiences around the world, from London to Buenos Aires to Qatar. Graff’s latest book, Enterprise Security Software: a Confluence of Disciplines, explains how to work with software developers and security practitioners to produce integrated security solutions for businesses.

YUAN HONG, PH.D.
Assistant Professor, Information Technology Management, State University of New York at Albany

Yuan Hong, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Technology Management; the Department of Computer Science (by courtesy); and the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity (by courtesy) at State University of New York at Albany. He received a Ph.D. in Information Technology from Rutgers University in 2013; a master’s degree in computer science from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; and a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from Beijing Institute of Technology, China. His research interests primarily lie at the intersection of privacy, security, optimization, and data analysis. He has published more than 30 technical articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings, such as IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Journal of Computer Security, International Journal of Energy Research, Journal of Information Systems, CIKM, EDBT, and ICDM. His research has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the SUNY STEM Research Passport Program.

PRIVACY PRESERVING DRIVING STYLE RECOGNITION
ABSTRACT: In order to better manage premiums and encourage safe driving, many commercial insurance companies (e.g., GEICO, Progressive) are providing options for their customers to install sensors on their vehicles that collect an individual vehicle’s traveling data. If a driver agrees to install the sensors, a discount on his/her premium would apply. The driver’s insurance is linked to his/her driving behavior. By analyzing the historical traveling data from a large number of vehicles, the insurance company can build a classifier to predict a new driver’s driving style: aggressive or defensive. However, collection of such vehicle traveling data explicitly breaches the driver’s personal privacy. In this talk, I present a privacy-preserving driving-style recognition technique to securely predict aggressive and defensive drivers for the insurance company without compromising the privacy of all participating parties in the semi-honest adversarial model (i.e., the insurance company cannot learn any private information from the vehicles and vice versa). In addition, the potential extension to the malicious adversarial model will be discussed. Finally, experimental results will be presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed technique.

RICHARD T. JACOBS
Assistant Special Agent In-Charge, Cyber Branch, FBI’s New York Office

Richard T. Jacobs is the assistant special agent in-charge of the Cyber Branch in the FBI’s New York office. The branch investigates national security and criminal cyber matters and responds to cyber incidents in the New York metropolitan area. In 2014, Jacobs helped establish the Financial Cyber Crimes Task Force, a multi-agency initiative targeting cyber crime and technology-based fraud schemes.

Following graduation from the FBI Academy in 1999, Jacobs was assigned to New York where he investigated a variety of securities fraud matters. From 2002 to 2005, he played the role of a corrupt stock broker in an undercover market-manipulation operation, which resulted in the conviction of 49 individuals. In June 2010, he was selected to lead a Manhattan-based securities fraud unit which handled the Bernard L. Madoff and the Galleon Group insider trading investigations. He was named assistant special agent in-charge in October 2014.

Prior to joining the FBI, Jacobs was a risk manager on Wall Street. He holds an M.B.A. with a concentration in finance and international business and was awarded the credential of Certified Information Systems Security Professional in 2015.

CAGDAS KARATAS
Ph.D. Candidate, Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB), Rutgers University

Cagdas Karatas received a bachelor of science degree from Anadolu University in 2006 and a master of science degree from Ege University in Turkey in 2011. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University under Professor Marco Gruteser. He is a graduate assistant in the Wireless Information Network Lab (WINLAB), where he is currently working on driving safety and activity recognition applications. His research interests lie in the fields of ubiquitous systems, context awareness, and activity recognition by using kinematic sensors.

ABSTRACT: Given the increasing popularity of wearable devices, this paper explores the potential to use wearables for steering and driver tracking. Such capability would enable novel classes of mobile safety applications without relying on information or sensors in the vehicle. In particular, we study how wrist mounted inertial sensors, such as those in smart watches and fitness trackers, can track steering wheel usage and angle, which provides fundamental techniques to improve driving detection, enhance vehicle motion tracking by mobile devices, and help identify unsafe driving. The approach relies on motion features that distinguish steering from other, confounding hand movements. Once steering wheel usage is detected, it uses wrist rotation measurements to infer steering-wheel turning angles. Our on-road experiments show that the technique is 99 percent accurate in detecting steering wheel usage and can estimate turning angles with an average error within 3.4 degrees.

JOHN KIMMINS
Senior Security Director, iconectiv; Telcordia Fellow

John Kimmins is the senior security director and chief security architect at iconectiv, a global telecommunications number portability and information services company. He has worked with governments, global service providers, international suppliers, utilities, financial services organizations, and enterprises to identify vulnerabilities and implement tactical and strategic security solutions. Kimmins has pioneered security risk assessment methodologies for national telecommunications services, supply chain risk management, broadband and mobile networking, and multimedia applications, and contributed to various standards forums. He is currently the co-chair of an FCC sponsored working group looking at legacy telecom technology and its impact on the security of new multimedia services. He was awarded the prestigious Telcordia Fellow Award for his contributions to the security of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure. He is also a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP).

WENJIA LI, PH.D.
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Wenjia Li’s research focuses on security, trust, and privacy issues in wireless networks, cyber-physical systems (CPS) (such as intelligent transportation systems), the Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile social networks. His research is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) Region 2 University Transportation Research Center (UTRC). Li is a member of ACM and IEEE.

Prior to joining NYIT in 2014, he was a tenure-track assistant professor at Georgia Southern University, a Doctoral and Research University by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2006), and a public comprehensive university within the University System of Georgia (USG) between August 2011 and July 2014.

He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in August 2011, and master’s degree in computer science and bachelor’s degree in telecommunication engineering, both from Hunan University, China, in 2005 and 2002.

TOWARD MORE SECURE AND TRUSTWORTHY VEHICULAR NETWORKS
ABSTRACT: Vehicular Networks (VNs) have the potential to transform the way people travel through the creation of a safe, interoperable wireless network that includes cars, buses, traffic signals, cell phones, and other devices. However, VNs are vulnerable to security threats due to increasing reliance on communication, computing, and control technologies. The unique security challenges posed by VNs include integrity (data trust), confidentiality, non-repudiation, access control, real-time operational constraints/demands, and availability. The trustworthiness of VNs could be improved by holistically addressing both data trust, defined as the assessment of whether or not and to what extent the reported traffic data are trustworthy, and node trust, defined as how trustworthy the nodes are in VNs. This presentation examines an attack-resistant trust management scheme (namely, ART) for VNs that is able to detect and cope with malicious attacks and also evaluate the trustworthiness of both data and mobile nodes in VNs. Data trust is evaluated based on the data sensed and collected from multiple vehicles; node trust is assessed in two dimensions: functional trust and recommendation trust, which indicate how likely a node can fulfill its functionality and how trustworthy the recommendations from a node for other nodes will be, respectively. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed ART scheme has been validated through extensive experiments. The proposed trust management scheme is applicable to a wide range of vehicular network applications to improve traffic safety, mobility, and environmental protection with enhanced trustworthiness.

THOMAS MENNER
Senior Solution Architect for eCommerce, Payments, Blockchain, B2B Integration, Digital Marketing, and Customer Analytics, US North Region, Financial Services Sector, IBM

Thomas Menner is a senior solution architect for IBM’s commerce solution portfolio in the financial services sector based in New York City. His work focuses on payments, B2B integration, blockchain patterns, procurement processes, omnichannel marketing, and customer analytics. Previously, Menner spent much of the past decade working as a worldwide middleware solution architect, with extensive international engagements (including assignments in Japan and China) across multiples industries. Menner joined IBM in 1998 as a professional services consultant for a startup company specializing in distributed transaction processing. Menner holds a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.

ABSTRACT: While blockchain platforms and applications are currently all the rage for solving use case patterns (such as trade settlements, asset tracking, healthcare records, and voting integrity), these solutions nevertheless come with their own set of security concerns. This discussion examines some of the potential security issues that are common to blockchains and, in some cases, specific to certain implementations.

MICHAEL MIRACLE
Senior Vice President for Marketing and Strategy, BlackRidge Technology

Mike Miracle leads marketing and strategy for BlackRidge Technology, a new leader in cybersecurity defense. Miracle is a senior technology and operations executive with more than 30 years of industry experience in networking, security, virtualization, and storage software. He has built and led marketing and business operations, corporate strategy and M&A, and large company engineering teams. As a consultant, he has advised many early stage technology companies on strategy and operations and served on company boards of directors. Prior to BlackRidge, Miracle was the chief marketing officer and senior vice president for SevOne and Evident Software and vice president of Corporate Strategy for VERITAS Software during its high growth years. He also held senior management and software development positions at HP, Novell, Unix Systems Labs, and AT&T Bell Labs. Miracle holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.

CAPTAIN DAVID MOSKOFF
Professor, Marine Transportation, United States Merchant Marine Academy

Captain David B. Moskoff, USMS, is a professor in the Marine Transportation Department—Nautical Sciences at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. A recognized expert in maritime cyber security, Moskoff has chaired panels and steering groups for various external symposiums, conferences, and maritime-related exercises/drills. He has served as assistant academic dean and faculty forum president. Moskoff has acted as USMMA POC for the USCG, USCG National Maritime Center, and DOD’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), providing midshipmen independent study in maritime security and counterterrorism venues. He is a senior expert advisor to NATO’s Transport Group for Ocean Shipping, senior advisor to DOD’s Purposeful Interference Response Team (PIRT), and serves as a DOT/MARAD/USMMA advisor/consultant to other federal entities.

Moskoff is also president of MARITECH, a marine consulting and maritime services firm. He has been certified as an American Bureau of Shipping Surveyor, is a certified ABS/QE ISO/ISM third party external lead auditor, and was made a third party auditor for the American Waterways Operators’ Responsible Carrier Program. He is a certified vessel security officer, facility security officer, and company security officer. He served as the first mooring master at Sea-3’s LPG ship terminal in New England. He holds a current USCG Unlimited Master’s License and has commanded both steam and diesel ships. He has a B.S. in Marine Transportation (SUNY Maritime) and M.S. in Information Technology (AIU).

JUDY MURRAH
Chief Information Officer, Applied DNA Sciences

Judy Murrah is chief information officer at Applied DNA Sciences, provider of DNA-based security and authentication solutions. Previously, Murrah led the IT program management office at Motorola. At Symbol Technologies, Murrah held leadership positions in IT, product management, retail marketing, corporate and marketing communications, and global account sales. She began her career as an industrial engineer at Kaiser Aluminum.

Murrah is co-founder and president of ConnectToTech, Inc., a nonprofit organization recognized by Computerworld magazine and the Long Island Imagine Awards for inspiring students to pursue STEM education and careers. She received the Top 50 Influential Women of Long Island award, the Diamond Award recognizing women leaders in technology, and the Long Island Software and Technology Network honoree award. She serves on the Middle Country Library Board and is co-author on 11 patents.

Murrah earned her industrial engineering degree from the University of Rhode Island and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

USING DNA FOR NEXT-GENERATION CYBER-PHYSICAL SECURITY
ABSTRACT: The advent of smart-connected devices, 3D printing, less-protected contract manufacturing, and easy transportability of computer designs brings to the forefront the need for physical security paired with software security (or cybersecurity). I will describe the use of DNA-based solutions for traceability, tamper-evidence, and authenticity. DNA-based taggants use the language of biotechnology to act as high-capacity and high fidelity covert, next-generation bar codes and message carriers. On a micro scale, they are used to protect electronic components. On a macro scale, they can protect a world of global supply chains, the critical infrastructure of electricity and transportation grids, product authenticity against counterfeiting, and the necessities of longer product lifecycles in the field. As marked components become part of a circuit board, and the circuit board becomes part of a navigation system, and the navigation system becomes part of a complete fighter plane, the DNA of each part is referenced to the others and can be thought of as a “product genome,” which can be authenticated “CSI-like” as it travels through its networked supply chain and into the field of use. Case studies in military electronics, textiles supply chains, and law enforcement will illustrate the practical applications of this new technology, melding biotech, and information technology.

JIM PORELL
Consultant and Retired IBM Distinguished Engineer

Jim Porell is a retired IBM Distinguished Engineer. At IBM, he was chief architect of mainframe software (10 years), led business development for the mainframe (three years), was the security and application development marketing lead (three years), and served as chief business architect for IBM Federal Sales (two years). Porell is on the advisory board of security start up Callsign. He is a consultant to Forcepoint, the security products of Raytheon, and a member of the Secret Service Electronic Crime Taskforce in Chicago. In each of these roles, Porell is focused on the secure and resilient deployment of hybrid computing solutions across server architectures and end user devices (e.g. smart phones, tablets, PCs).

AMJED M. SAFFARINI
Chief Executive Officer, CyberVista

Amjed Saffarini is CEO of Graham Holdings’ CyberVista cybersecurity education unit. CyberVista brings a learning science approach to its cybersecurity training programs, which range from board and executive cyber-literacy courses and tools to security certification prep offerings.

Saffarini was president of Graham Holdings’ Kaplan unit in charge of the University Innovations Group, which incorporates student learning, retention, marketing, and engagement solutions into traditional universities to assist with their online academic programs.

As co-head of Kaplan’s Chief Delivery Office, he worked to implement a re-organization of Kaplan’s markets through broad scale collaboration initiatives with the company’s senior executive team and an organization of 24,000 employees.

Throughout his 16 years at Kaplan, where he started as a faculty instructor, Saffarini has led teams in brand management and marketing, product development, instructional pedagogy, curricular products and assets, and online technology platforms. These teams have brought many industry firsts to the market, including the first comprehensive online course in 2003, the first live online program in 2008, and the first hybrid in-class/synchronous online learning program in 2010. Today, these programs represent more than half of all student learning hours at Kaplan Test Prep. Saffarini’s professional focus areas include learning data analytics research and learning interventions systems. He has a Bachelor of Science in Cell Biology and Neuroscience from Rutgers University and lives in the New York City area with his wife and three children.

LAVERN SULA
President, North America, Argus Cyber Security Ltd.

LaVern Sula is president, North America, at Argus. Sula has a wealth of experience in the automotive industry and areas including product development, cybersecurity, and globalization, and has worked on several overseas assignments. Prior to Argus, Sula spent more than 30 years working globally in the automotive industry, primarily as a senior executive at General Motors (GM). As GM’s global engineering director of Vehicle Cyber–Security, Sula established and led GM’s global cybersecurity organization. Sula holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from NYIT.

AUTOMOTIVE CYBERSECURITY: IN-DEPTH DEFENSE IS THE ONLY WAY
ABSTRACT: Over the last few years, the automotive ecosystem (OEM’s, suppliers, dealerships, etc.) has been waking up to the fact that if someone is motivated enough, they can hack a vehicle while it is in motion. This presentation examines the complexity of today’s automobiles, the automotive cyber-threat landscape, and dynamic cybersecurity solutions that help ensure that motorists can enjoy the limitless benefits of connectivity without compromising security and privacy.

FELIX THOMAS, CISSP, CAP, CRISC
President and Chief Executive Officer, Network Security Systems Plus, Inc.

Felix A. Thomas brings more than 40 years of thought leadership to NSSPlus. He has been an entrepreneur since 1988 and is the founder of NSSPlus. He has extensive technical, management, and consulting experience in the healthcare IT, information technology, and cybersecurity fields.

Thomas is a senior executive with a proven track record in getting jobs done and providing information technology support services to the DoD, various federal agencies, and the private sector. For the past 15+ years, Thomas has served as the leader of NSSPlus, growing the company from one employee to its current population of more than 200 employees. He recently guided the company through the successful completion of the ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 certifications—an act that demonstrates his commitment to continual process improvement and risk management within NSSPlus.

Thomas continues to manage the company by providing quality cybersecurity consulting services to high profile customers, including the Defense Health Agency, GSA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, SPAWAR–Atlantic, and the Defense Contract Management Agency.

Thomas earned a B.S. in Computer Science from NYIT and worked on his master’s degree at Golden Gate University in Mountain View, California. He has been a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) since 2001.

JONATHAN VORIS, PH.D.
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Jonathan Voris, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Computer Science at NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Prior to joining NYIT, Voris served as an adjunct assistant professor in Columbia University’s Computer Science Department and as a postdoctoral research scientist in Columbia’s Intrusion Detection Systems Lab. Voris has also worked as a software engineer and network manager in the New York metropolitan area. His research focuses on the security, privacy, and usability of systems, in particular emerging mobile and embedded platforms. His work has been published in a variety of venues including TETC, FC, PerCom, WiSec, and SOUPS.

JAY WILLIAMS, ICS/SCADA
ICS/SCADA, Vice President, Cyber Infrastructure Protection Sector Manager, Parsons, Inc.

James “Jay” Williams is vice president and manager of the Cyber Infrastructure Protection Sector within the federal business unit of Parsons Corporation. Federal, a primary global business unit of Parsons Corporation, delivers, protects, and sustains critical federal assets across the defense, security, intelligence, environmental, and infrastructure markets worldwide. In this role, Williams is leading an initiative to expand Parsons’ security business across all business units to customers in state and local government and the commercial market.

Williams brings to this position 24 years of experience as an executive, sales manager, and engineer focused on technology. In his previous role with Parsons, as director of business development for ICS/SCADA Cybersecurity, Williams was instrumental in developing business with key accounts and establishing Parsons’ strategic partnership with FireEye. Prior to joining Parsons, he was national business development manager for a leading provider of industrial solutions and was responsible for the growth of their industrial cybersecurity business and oversight of more than 40 accounts, including both federal and commercial customers. Williams also served in a sales executive/management role at Marquardt Switches, Honeywell Imaging and Mobility, and Cognex Corporation, delivering business growth for electronic products ranging from industrial control systems to barcode scanners and imaging systems.

Williams holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Syracuse Schools Cybersecurity Advisory Council in Syracuse, N.Y.

ABSTRACT: The current trend in transportation includes a future with smart cities, driverless cars, and maximum automation in mass transit. The move towards more intelligent systems controlling the transportation infrastructure requires a renewed way at how we look at cybersecurity in this critical sector. The investment in an enhanced cybersecurity program has been shown to result in reduced attack vectors, increased resiliency, and preparedness. A key roadblock to achieving this is by uniting Information Technology (IT) with Operations Technology (OT) staff in order to gain a more unified risk management and security approach within a transit agency. Additionally, collaboration and participation in information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs) extend these benefits across multiple transit agencies. An enhanced cybersecurity plan for transportation should include: assessing the existing vulnerabilities, mitigating those weaknesses, implementing the proper and necessary technology to create a secure baseline (target profile), and developing a managed program to continue monitoring the ever-evolving threat landscape. This enhanced cybersecurity posture can ensure the operational resilience of transit operations and the continuous delivery of service with proper protection and security. Security, both cyber and physical, has to be managed with a well-designed, sustainable program that will allow today’s transportation agencies to operate safely in the most adverse and dynamic threat environment. An experienced cybersecurity partner, with expertise in both the transportation and security fields, can provide an independent and objective perspective to an organization while sharing proven industry security practices to protect operation continuity and resilience during security incidents and cyberattacks.