Past Conferences

2007 Austin Conference

Approximately 300 attendees, representing some of the country's leading application developers, auditors, compliance officers, contingency planners, database administrators, facility managers, IT and physical security professionals and systems and network administrators, attended TRISC May 15-17, 2007 at the Hilton Austin Airport Hotel.

The 2007 TRISC theme, “Beyond Convergence” was developed from the recognition that after the data and phone networks, business and SCADA networks and the physical and information security systems and/or organizations converge, the security and audit functions must manage the infrastructure, and regulatory and compliance requirements must be met in order to protect the assets of the organization, which includes personal safety and data, intellectual property and physical assets.

"The success of this year’s TRISC is in its ability to reach across people, processes and technology to help us prevent, detect, respond to and recover from any type of security incident,” said Vern Williams, CISSP CBCP, TRISC 2007 Steering Committee Chair. “It’s no secret that there has been an increase in the complexity and targeting of security-related attacks, such as phishing, cyber attacks, malware, theft, extortion and fraud. Eliminating catastrophic consequences requires a united and comprehensive approach.”

 

2007 Keynote Speakers


Karen Worstell
Co-founder and Principal of Water’s Edge Consulting, LLC

Karen Worstell is a co-founder and principal of Water’s Edge Consulting, LLC, a professional services firm that enables Fortune 200 companies to manage risk and recognize competitive advantage through streamlined processes that address the myriad of standards, best practices, regulations, statutes and IT technologies. Karen's twenty years of information security and IT Risk Management experience spans multiple sectors, most recently in the last 3 years as CISO of Microsoft and the VP of IT Risk Management/CISO for AT&T Wireless/ Cingular. At both Microsoft and AT&T Wireless, Karen played a key role in the successful implementation of general computer controls for Sarbanes-Oxley in their respective IT organizations. Prior to joining AT&T Wireless she led the security practice for SRI Consulting and its spin-off, Atomic Tangerine, where she assisted clients with opportunity analysis for information security startups, led product development and security research on emerging trends, and consulted to global Fortune 500 and government customers in the US, Singapore and Europe. She has also served in senior information security roles at Bank of America, Boeing Defense and Space, Boeing Research and Technology, and Union Carbide Corporation. She has held leadership roles on the Computer Systems Security and Privacy Advisory Board for the Department of Commerce, the OSI Implementer’s workshops on Security Architecture at NIST, Open Group, the security subcommittee of NSIE, Aerospace Industries Association Security Subcommittee, and was involved in the early standardization of secure email, directory security, and Kerberos authentication.

Howard Schmidt
President and CEO of R & H Security Consulting LLC

Howard A. Schmidt has had a long distinguished career in defense, law enforcement and corporate security spanning almost 40 years. He has served as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Security Strategist for online auction giant eBay. He most recently served in the position of Chief Security Strategist for the US CERT Partners Program for the National Cyber Security Division, Department of Homeland Security.

He retired from the White House after 31 years of public service in local and federal government. 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. He assumed the role as the Chair in January 2003 until his retirement in May 2003.
Prior to the White House, Howard was chief security officer for Microsoft Corp., where his duties included CISO, CSO and forming and directing the Trustworthy Computing Security Strategies Group.

Before Microsoft, Mr. Schmidt was a supervisory special agent and director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Computer Forensic Lab and Computer Crime and Information Warfare Division. While there, he established the first dedicated computer forensic lab in the government.

Before AFOSI, Mr. Schmidt was with the FBI at the National Drug Intelligence Center , where he headed the Computer Exploitation Team. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the field of computer forensics and computer evidence collection. Before working at the FBI, Mr. Schmidt was a city police officer from 1983 to 1994 for the Chandler Police Department in Arizona.

Mr. Schmidt served with the U.S. Air Force in various roles from 1967 to 1983, both in active duty and in the civil service. He had served in the Arizona Air National Guard from 1989 until 1998 when he transferred to the U.S. Army Reserves as a Special Agent, Criminal Investigation Division where he continues to serve. He has testified as an expert witness in federal and military courts in the areas of computer crime, computer forensics and Internet crime.

Mr. Schmidt had also served as the international president of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and the first president of the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC). He is a former executive board member of the International Organization of Computer Evidence, and served as the co-chairman of the Federal Computer Investigations Committee. He is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists. He serves as an advisory board member for the Technical Research Institute of the National White Collar Crime Center , and was a distinguished special lecturer at the University of New Haven, Conn., teaching a graduate certificate course in forensic computing.

He served as an augmented member to the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology in the formation of an Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection. He has testified before congressional committees on computer security and cyber crime, and has been instrumental in the creation of public and private partnerships and information-sharing initiatives. He is regularly featured on CNN, CNBC, Fox TV as well as a number of local media outlets talking about cyber-security.

Mr. Schmidt has been appointed to the Information Security Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) to advise the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget on information security and privacy issues pertaining to Federal Government information systems, including thorough review of proposed standards and guidelines developed by NIST.

Mr. Schmidt holds board positions on a number of corporate boards in both an advisory and director positions and recently has assumed the role as Chairman of the Board for Electronics Lifestyle Integration (ELI).

Mr. Schmidt holds a bachelor's degree in business administration (BSBA) and a master's degree in organizational management (MAOM) from the University of Phoenix. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters.

Jon Callas

Mr. Callas served as Director of Software Engineering at Counterpane Internet Security Inc. and was a co-architect of Counterpane’s Managed Security Monitoring system. Most recently, he was Senior Systems Architect at Wave Systems Corporation. His career includes work at Digital Equipment Corporation, World Benders and Apple Computer. He is the principal author of the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF’s) OpenPGP standard and a writer and frequent lecturer on system security and intellectual property issues. Mr. Callas holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Maryland.