Northeast Ohio Information Security Forum

Resilience is the ability an organization has to quickly adapt to disruptions while maintaining continuous, effective business operations and safeguarding people, assets and overall brand equity.  In this session we will discuss business and IT resiliency and try to determine if it is just another buzzword or catchphrase to be used at social gatherings and company meetings, or if it is a strategic objective in response to the needs of an organization to be adaptable and competitive.  What do you think?

BIO:
Gary Sheehan is the Chief Security Officer and Director of GRC Services for ASMGi.  ASMGi provides a variety of IT, security and business solutions that enable organizations to meet their goals and objectives.  Gary has over 30 years of experience in information technology with over 25 years of experience in information security, specializing in GRC integration, security management, compliance, policy and awareness development, and security program governance.  Throughout his career Gary has worked for and with a number large companies in the banking, insurance, diversified industrial, healthcare, manufacturing and chemical industries.  He has successfully executed large, global security projects and implemented enterprise-wide security programs at a number of companies.

Gary is a past President of the Northern Ohio Members Alliance of InfraGard and Founder of Information Security Summit.  Gary has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baldwin-Wallace College and is a 2006 graduate from the FBI Citizens Academy.

“The Domain Name System – Operation and Security”
by Tom Kopchak from Hurricane Labs

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a critical service for the operation of the Internet as we know it. Although the process of resolving human readable domain names into Internet-routable IP addresses may seem simple, this process is backed by a massive, globally-distributed database. The reliable functioning of this system impacts all users – from end users, to system administrators, to security professionals and event entire countries. Because of behavior and ubiquity of DNS, it has recently become a focus for attackers, especially as both a source and target for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

In this presentation, Tom will provide an overview of the operation and design of the Domain Name System, focusing on both the global structure along with best practices for a local deployment. Security considerations will be a core component of the presentation, including an overview of recent attacks leveraging the fundamental operation of DNS along with improperly configured resolvers resulting in significant interruptions in Internet service.

BIO:
Tom Kopchak is a Senior Security Engineer and Operations Team Lead at Hurricane Labs, an Information Security Firm in Cleveland, Ohio who specializes in Splunk design and implementation, network integration, and firewall and network security. Tom is an alum of the Rochester Institute of Technology, with a background in Computing Security and Information Security (MS) and Applied Networking and System Administration (BS). His research areas include computer forensics and data storage technologies. When he is not working with computers, Tom enjoys composing, music improvisation (Acts of Music), and playing both the piano and organ.