Shannon Chair of IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative

PITTSBURGH & PISCATAWAY, N.J., 3 November 2014 — IEEE, the world's largest professional organization advancing technology for humanity, and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) today announced that nationally recognized scientist and security expert Dr. Greg Shannon has been named Chair of the IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative.

Dr. Shannon is Chief Scientist for the CERT® Division at the SEI where he regularly partners with government, industry, and academia to develop advanced methods and technologies to counter sophisticated cyber threats. In his role as Chair of the IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative, Dr. Shannon will shape and lead a technical agenda that brings unique solutions to cybersecurity challenges by providing tools and data for computer security education, provides guidance on secure software coding and software assurance engineering, and facilitates adoption throughout the cybersecurity industry.

"Many of the cybersecurity exploits that continue to make the daily news feeds come from avoidable engineering and operational mistakes that result in large-scale coordinated cyber attacks on netizens, critical infrastructures and nations," said Dr. Shannon. "As networks continue to juggle exponential growth, new threats will emerge. Now is the time not only for better defensive measures, but also for cybersecurity standards and best practices that consider the entire technology lifecycle. With IEEE's ubiquitous impact on cyber technologies, I'm delighted to chair this initiative and harness IEEE's experience, technical leadership, and resources to address society's pervasive cybersecurity and privacy challenges."

The IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative recently launched the Center for Secure Design, a cybersecurity initiative focused on the identification of software design flaws. The center's report, titled "Avoiding the Top 10 Software Security Design Flaws," is based on real-world data collected and analyzed by experts at the world's leading technology companies.

Dr. Shannon is a senior member of IEEE and has held a series of positions within the organization, most recently serving as General Chair for the 35thIEEE Security & Privacy Symposium. Prior to joining the SEI CERT Division, Shannon was the chief scientist at two startups working on scalable statistical anomaly detection, the science of cybersecurity, and insider threats. In earlier positions, he led applied research and development in cybersecurity and data analysis at Lucent Technologies, Lumeta, Ascend Communications, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Indiana University, and his own startup company. Shannon received a BS in computer science from Iowa State University with minors in mathematics, economics, and statistics. He earned his MS and PhD degrees in computer sciences at Purdue University on a fellowship from the Packard Foundation.

To learn more follow the IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative on Twitter, or visit cybersecurity.ieee.org.