Profile
I am a self-starting, project-oriented individual with over 23 years of experience in computing systems architecture, engineering, and management. I have a broad range of skills and depth in most areas of system architecture, security, general site administration, management and development in highly available production environments. I have supported these operations on NASA shuttle projects; TSA security systems; and production services for a 10000 strong associate base. I perform security audits of banks, hospitals, and government agencies. I have held a Secret Clearance, a Civilian NACL and have previously held a Top Secret-SBI Clearance. I am a founding member and Vice-President of the Tidewater Information Systems Security Professionals group.
Experience
Architecture Expertise
Designed, Engineered and Implemented several high-availability systems including a real-time search application for books and other products; a data-aggregation and monitoring system for TSA scanning equipment; and network scanning and monitoring system for a 10000+ node network. I have designed and written several large scale web-based programs in Perl and Ruby.
Management Expertise
Managed as many as 15 associates in a highly available production environment. Responsibilities included a 3.5 million dollar budget, associate evaluations, leadership training and project management. Supervised areas included Network Support, Unix Administration, PeopleSoft Administration, Informix Support, Internet Services Support, Unix Systems Development, Software Development and Integration, IT Security Services and Oracle Database Administration.
Security Experience
Can perform detailed network and policy audits; penetration testing and forensic analysis using current tools and processes. Have experience with Nessus, NMAP, and most other OSS security tools. Performed extensive social engineering and physical penetration testing. Developed and instructed classes in IT Security, perl and Unix administration. Have presented at USENIX, ShmooCon and CariloniaCon conferences and taught for ISSA, SANS and ShmooCon.
Technical Expertise
Expert administrative skills in most variants of UNIX including Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, HPUX, Solaris; and Windows 2003/2008/XP/Vista. Senior programming skills in web based applications using ruby/perl and MySQL. Can configure and maintain various authentication schemes and network services including: RSA, LDAP, SMTP, CIFS, NFS, Nagios and SNMP. System management skills on various types of equipment including Dell, HP, Sun, EMC, and Cisco, Apple and i386 desktops and servers. Familiar with various databases including Informix, Oracle, Postgres and MySQL.. I have developed and instructed classes on Unix System Administration, Perl programming and system architecture management.
Certifications
- NASA Certified Security Manager, Certified System Administrator
- CompTIA Security+
- SANS GSEC Silver Certified.
- SANS Security Instructor
- Six Sigma Green Belt
- BSD Certified System Administrator
- Currently working on Certified Ethical Hacker course
Employment
Raytheon/Stinger Gaffarian Technologies – NASA Langley 04/2010 – Current
Systems Architect and Experiment Specialist
Responsible for the redesign and architecture of an ~700 node lab. The lab performs synchronous and asynchronous production operations supporting airspace simulation using low, medium and high fidelity stations with actual pilots. Integrated the separate experiment clusters into a single, secure, high-performance and highly available network with full infrastructure (DHCP,DNS,NTP,SMTP) including security controls and monitoring. Wrote software and operated experiments processing 500,000+ scenarios on 64 hosts in ~9 hours and developing 4.5Tbytes of data.
sandSecurity, LLC 02/06 – Current
Senior System and Security Architect , CEO
As technical lead, perform contract related services to a number of financial and medical institutions for security audits, penetration testing, remediation, system administration and large installation integration. Also perform system and network support services as well as web application and middle-ware development for high-traffic sites. Supported clients include Transportation Security Administration, NASA, Bluewater, AT Corp, Raytheon, Crystal Solutions and many financial institutions. Designed, built and implemented our on-site Co-Hosting facility and Enterprise Resource Planning system to better serve customers.
Raytheon: 02/06 – 03/09 (PT)
STIP Contract to Transportation Security Administration
System Architect and Implementation Manager
Developed and implemented a network monitoring, data-collection and authentication system for a TSA pilot program supporting security bag scanning machines (Smiths and Rapidscan). This involved integrating and extending a third party commercial monitoring system with existing and developing infrastructure within TSA’s production network. Developed the technical and work management components of the proposal and worked closely with the Project Manager to ensure the project moved forward to successful completion. Managed associates on-site and was the main technical liaison to TSA and their support contractors.
Raytheon:
10/03 - 03/09 CoNITS Contract to NASA Langley
Security Analyst
Primarily responsible for Incident Management at the NASA Langley Research Center performing interdiction, forensics and remediation on compromised hosts and systems. Also supported Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Windows hosts providing security services. Performed extensive development with Perl+MySQL for managing security related data using web-clients. Responsible for outreach as well as supporting the Unix System Administrators on base through various projects such as documentation, project management and security profiling of hosts and systems.
Northrop Grumman Information Technology 03/03 – 10/03
Systems Integrator
Responsible for integration of various Solaris and Windows NT systems into a cohesive unit in the Army Amphibious Assault Vehicle performing security audits of systems and networks. Developed a unique installation solution, which used FreeBSD to install Solaris over the network. Developed and instituted basic system administration services including network routing, firewall management and backups for the development and test networks in support of the project.
Windborne Productions 06/01 – 06/08
Senior Systems and Security Engineer
Responsible for all system administration for a small Internet Services Provider and their clients. Duties included performing security audits for banks, hospitals, and other businesses, VPN support for clients all over the country and general system spport.. Developed various marketed solutions including a single server for managing single sign-on, web, E-mail, VPN and firewall capabilities for a customer. Also designed and implemented a failover configuration for firewalls, BGP multi-pathing for routers and web clusters for load balancing and redundancy. Designed and implemented a computing facility including all aspects of power, environment and cabling.
Ferguson Enterprises 02/94 – 06/01
Manager, Risk and Information Security
Responsible for security of all IT systems including physical security of computing facilities, tape storage and remote sites, remote access, internet access, internal software security and policies, risk management dealing with all IT functions including change management, disaster recovery planning and testing, disaster site design and implementation and new computing facilities design and implementation. Also designed and implemented system application software including a common home-directory structure for Unix and Windows, a single authentication structure using LDAP and a remote access system using VPN and remote dial-up using ACL protections.
Manager, Systems Group
Responsible for 15 associates in various IT related functions including Peoplesoft, Unix, Oracle, Informix and MySQL administration with a budget in excess of 3.4 million.
Manager, Unix Systems Administration
Responsible for 5 associates administrating HP, Solaris and TOPIX servers in a production environment with over 6000 active users and a budget of 1.4 million.
Senior Unix Systems Administrator
Starting as the sole Unix System Administrator for a 4000 strong install base I brought TCP/IP, Internet connectivity and most all the base networking and systems infrastructure to the company. Began with four Sequoias and was a catalyst to moving the company to 40+ HPUX and FreeBSD servers supporting 9000 associates.
Computer Sciences Corporation 06/92 – 02/94
Senior Unix System Administrator
Working as a contractor at NASA Langley Research Center I directly administered a cluster of 28 Sun systems for scientists and engineers. I also worked as part of a team to administer over 200 diverse systems from IBM to SGI. As a part of this team I implemented a site wide backup plan and problem tracking software.
United States Navy 06/86 – 06/94
Cryptologic Technician Petty Officer
Responsible for various communications equipment and services on active duty (2+ years) and reserves for the rest of the duration while assigned to the Naval Security Group Detachment CINCLANTFLT during active duty and the Naval Security Group Northwest for reserve duty.
Accomplishments
- Designed, developed and implemented a full production quality network.
- Designed, developed and implemented an Enterprise Resource Management program for sandSecurity.
- Designed and implemented a highly-available web cluster for a large book-search website. I developed and implemented the back-end search engine for the service.
- Designed and implemented two independent computer-hosting facilities including power, environment and network systems.
- Developed a cfengine ‘bootstrap’ system for bringing RedHat, Fedora, Solaris and FreeBSD hosts up from a base install to current requirements.
- Developed and implemented several redundant FreeBSD web clusters with redundant firewalls providing IPSEC, DNS, DHCP and SSH services; printing service to manage 6000+ printers from a single centralized host; centralized user administration using LDAP, Radius, and YP; common home directory structure for 7000+ associates; low impact backup services for 3+TB of data using Amanda, Omniback, and Veritas; knowledge base, task management, and call tracking and processing systems; a mail routing system that allows for different types of data store and email clients and does active UCE and content filtering.
Personal
I have various interests from training and teaching in Coung Nhu Karate to house construction. I have traveled around the world, enjoy having friends from all over and meeting new people.
Education
- 3 Years College at Old Dominion University
- GSEC certification
- Security+ certification
- BSD Certification
- Many SANS courses ( GCIH, GCIA, GCUX )
- First Aid and CPR Certified