Catherine Blackadar Nelson

 

catherine_blackadar@yahoo.com

 

 

OBJECTIVE:

 

To obtain a position as a senior security architect, senior risk assessment auditor or manger of a security team where I can continue to promote information security awareness, design/review security infrastructures, and remain active in the security community.

 

 

CURRENT EMPLOYMENT:

 

Cisco Systems                                              San Jose, CA                         Sept 1997 – Present

 

Risk Assessment Auditor                                                                                  2002 – Present

·         Performed Information Security audits based on CRAM (ISO 17799/FIPS-199 standards).

·         Conducted risk assessments on domestic and international Cisco, partner and acquisition facilities.

·         Gathered data using standard tools, host/network scanners (Nessus, Nmap, SARA, Kismet, NetStumbler etc.), drafted reports, presented finding to senior management and worked on remediation.

·         Performed benchmarking and bakeoffs on various scanning tools and risk management software.

·         Designed implementation plans for enterprise wide network scanning and risk management solutions.

·         Wrote risk assessment procedure, policy and template documents.

·         Developed and maintained hardened Mac OS X image and security tools for Risk Assessment team.

 

Senior Information Security Architect/Team Lead                                          2000 – Present

·         Web Architecture Team Lead – Set strategic direction for the team, defined policies and overall security improvements in this area, mentor for other team members.

·         Worked closely with Cisco groups to help them design secure solutions for projects. This entailed evaluating, researching, and designing innovative security architecture solutions. Required knowledge of the technical, business and political issues involved and the ability to find viable, cost effective, timely solutions acceptable to all parties.

·         Web and Internet security expert - Designed secure web architectures, remediated web security incidents, evaluated/implemented new technologies, review ASP’s (Application Service Providers). Many technologies dealt with included: Borland Enterprise Server, Siebel, Oracle Application Server, IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogics, J2EE, Tomcat, SSL, COBRA/IIOP, LDAP, AD, Netegrity, Kerberos, Messaging systems/JMS, SSH, PGP, PKI, cache engines, encryption standards, CMS/CSS/Local Directors

·         Worked with leading vendors to evaluate and improve the security of their products.

·         Wrote security policies, procedures, hardening guides, documented networks, and infrastructures.

·         Member of the security awareness team, designed and taught classes, educated other groups inside and outside of Cisco

·         Member of the security alerts team which monitored various lists such as BugTraq, Symantec Alerts etc., for new incidents and vulnerabilities, assed criticality and worked with other infrastructure/incident response teams for remediation.

·         Worked with upper management, global review boards and other groups in a general advisory capacity to promote security throughout Cisco.

·         Interfaced with other Cisco security teams such as PSIRT (Product Security Incident Response Team), CIAP (Cisco Information Asset Protection), and IT compliance (CA SB 1386 and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance)

 

 

Team lead & Technical lead for TacWeb/TacSuns System Administrator       1997 – 2000

·         Managed TacWeb team including budgets, hiring, training, interfacing with other Cisco teams.

·         Responsible for everything to do with www-tac - Web/application servers, security, operating systems, publishing systems, software, hardware, databases, search engines, cgi-scripts, content, new technologies.

·         Developed web applications (HTML, XML, Perl, PHP, C, Java, Javascript, Python).

·         TacSuns System and network administrator, Linux and Sun Systems (Ultra 1/5/10/20, E250/450).

 

 

PATENT:

 

“System and Method for Modeling an Information Security Risk”       Patent Pending 2004

Co-inventor of The Cisco Rapid Risk Prototyping Tool, a decision support tool that provides baseline profiling and security risk triaging for IT projects.

 

 

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS:

 

SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute                              2000 – Present

Conference Speaker and Volunteer

SANS is a Computer Security training, certification and research organization

·         Conference Speaker 2002-2003 – Presented “Secure Web Infrastructures: Beyond the Hardened Web Server”.

·         Volunteer – Helped with conference and the “Terminal Room” (provided machines and network access for participants).

·         Participated in various SANS technical conferences through the country and taken the majority of their curriculum.

 

KnowledgeConnect                                                                                     2000 – Present

Guest Speaker

This forum provides confidential technical information sharing between fortune 500 companies to help them achieve strategic and operational advantages.

·         Three time guest speaker at this forum.  Topics covered Risk Assessment and Management models and best computer security practices.

 

Mr. Router’s Neighborhood                                                                                    2002 - Present

Regular Guest Speaker          

This is a live IPTV show broadcast internationally through out Cisco on which I’m a returning guest speaker presenting various security topics.

 

Nerd Lunches                                                                                               November 2004

Guest Speaker

This is an internal Cisco Technical engineering forum.                                          

·         Guest speaker presenting “General Security and Secure Web Infrastructures”.

 

Security Training                                                                                          2000 - Present

Regular Lecturer

Wrote and presented courses to Cisco employees, at EBC’s, and trained partners, vendors and clients. Topics included:

·         Risk Assessment/Management processes and methodologies

·         Computer security and awareness

·         Web/Internet security

·         Designing secure e-Commerce infrastructures

·         Secure Coding Practices

 

 

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT:

 

Stardust Technologies                                Campbell, CA                         April 1996 - 1997

Web Team Manager/WebMaster/System Administrator/Network administrator

·         Responsible for all aspects,  hardware and software, of  high traffic, rapidly changing,  cutting edge web sites including Web/FTP/Secure servers, Apache, IIS, HTML, XML, forms, cgi-scripts, search engines, reflectors, MBONE, IP Multicast, audio/video, animation, listserv, hypermail, ftpmail, site statistics, registration and  certificates.

·         Installed and maintained all internal systems, including networks (TPC/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBeui, NetBios, SLIP/PPP), routers, switches, gateways, firewalls, Internet connections, Internet servers, nameservers, mailservers Linux/UNIX systems (SCO, AIX, BDS, System V), Novell Netware, MS Lan Manager, VMS, PDP/VAX, IBM Mainframe, Windows/Win95/NT/WFWG/Win 3.1/DOS systems, printers, cabling, internal software, phones, fax machines.

Network Engineer

·         Helped maintain, configure, and operate the WinSock Interoperability Networking Labs

·         Helped customers test WinSock applications over windows 3.1/95/NT 16 and 32 bit Ethernet and dialup TCP/IP stacks including Chameleon, Microsoft, Trumpet, Spry, Solarnet, Instant Internet, WRQ, Novell, FTP, TGV/Cisco

·         QA on customers networking applications.

 

 

WWW/Internet Consultant                           Santa Cruz, CA                      1995-1997

·         Design, and maintained web sites and developed custom backend cgi-scripts in Perl, C, and Unix Shell.

·         Internet consultant for small and enterprise level businesses.

·         Trained clients in the basics of the Internet, Web Servers, HTML, browsers, UNIX, VI, Telnet, FTP.

 

 

InfoStreet, Inc.                                              Sherman Oaks, CA               1995 - April 1996

Web Developer/Web Master

·         Maintained the web servers, ftp servers, and other Internet related programs/scripts.

·         Developed custom backend cgi-scripts (HTML, Perl, Java, C, Shell) for clients needs.

·         Designed and maintained web sites for InfoStreet clients.

·         Trained clients in Internet and web related information.

Technical Lead/System Administrator

·         Purchased, installed and maintained internal UNIX systems, internet connections, and other systems/hardware.

 

 

JSB Corporation                                           Scotts Valley, CA                   1993 - May 1995

Technical Support Manager 1995

JSB WebMaster/ System Administrator 1994 - 1995

·         Designed, wrote and maintained JSB's web site.

·         Internal support/maintenance of PC's, UNIX systems, Novell server, internal ethernet networks, modems, printers, backups, fax's ISDN Internet connection, gateway/firewall, FTP, WWW and mail servers.

·         Purchased/repaired equipment.

Technical Support Engineer (pre and post sales support) 1993-1994

·         Installation and trouble shooting of JSB's network terminal emulator, UNIX terminal windowing application, and X server.

·         Set up and managed the support testing facilities.

·         Wrote documentation and technical information, internal and external training.

 

 

Borland International                                   Scotts Valley, CA                   1991

Independent Contractor

·         Directed market research for the Languages Business Unit.

·         Evaluated third party software including C, C++, Pascal, FORTRAN, BASIC development environments.

 

 

The Santa Cruz Operation Inc.                   Santa Cruz, CA                      1987 - 1989

Technical Support Engineer

·         Helped Customers install UNIX/XENIX on PC's, hook up terminals printers, modems, disk drives, tape machines, and instructed them in general system maintenance and operation.

·         Trained new engineers in support procedures and technical information.

·         Researched difficult or unusual customer problems.

·         Wrote documentation and FAQ’s.

 

 

EDUCATION:

           

B.A., Computer and Informational Sciences, June 1987

University of California at Santa Cruz

 

 

References Available Upon Request