03.22.10
The Real Life Charles Xavier
The Paller-Scope’s gaze looks upon journalists and hackers alike, in much the way Cerebro is used by Professor X to keep a watchful eye on good and evil mutants.
Paller is kind of a real-life version of Professor Charles Xavier, the X-men comic-book character who heads a school designed to find and nurture young mutants with supernatural powers. — Newsweek
“Journalists are among the most important people in cyber security because until the public fully understands the threat, the nation will never act to solve the problem,” said Alan Paller, the SANS Institute’s director of research. SANS sponsored the awards and is considered the largest and most trusted source of information security training and certification in the world. — a SANS press release about ‘journalism awards’ handed out by Alan Paller
Among those who are pushing this [hacker] recruitment drive is Alan Paller, co-founder of Sans Institute cyber-security school. Alan initiated a Cyber Challenge last year in which participants were required to hack into servers. Some of the participants were hired by National Security Agency, while the FBI and Air Force too decided to offer internship to future winners.
A potential flip side to such competitions is that, the skills they learn could be turned against the law. However, Alan, while admitting it as an inherent risk, says that its worth it in the face of a shortage of experts and defending the country from incessant cyber attacks. — some vendor conference
Disobeying a standing rule is often adequate grounds for dismissal, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a security certification and training organization. But the question that also needs to be asked here is why the state of Pennsylvania has not publicly disclosed the security incident that Maley spoke about at the RSA conference, Paller said.
Rather than try and keep a lid on the incident, “public officials have the responsibility to tell the world [about such events],” Paller said. — Computerworld
Attention, amateur hackers: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight cyber-crime — and he’s getting pretty desperate, too. As cyber-attacks become more complex and virulent, the U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into securing our nation’s digital borders. Problem is, it’s facing a severe shortage of manpower. Out of the roughly 20,000 “elite??? cyber-experts that the U.S. needs, there are only about 1,000 currently fighting the good fight. Faced with this dearth of expertise, and with a national training program that’s proven to be flawed, governmental agencies and private companies alike have broadened their recruitment wingspan in an effort to dig out whiz-kid diamonds in the rough.
One of the people spearheading this revamped recruitment initiative is Alan Paller, co-founder and research director of the Sans Institute cyber-security school, and who, according to Newsweek, is “kind of a real-life version of Professor Charles Xavier.??? — some miscellaneous apple-polisher perhaps angling for an award next year
The Paller-Scope — from the archives