Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Global Public Sector McAfee, Founding Chairman and Chairman Emeritus, InfraGard National Members Alliance
Dr. Phyllis Schneck is Chief Technology Officer for Public Sector at McAfee, Inc. In this role, she is responsible
for the technical vision for public sector applications of security and global threat intelligence, strategic thought
leadership around technology and policy in cyber security, and leading McAfee initiatives in adaptive security
and intelligence in networks for critical infrastructure protection and cross-sector cyber security.
For more than 14 years, Schneck has had a distinguished presence in the security and infrastructure protection
community, most recently as a Commissioner and a working group Co-Chair on public-private partnership, and a
working group Chair on Network Situational Awareness for the CSIS Commission to Advise the 44
th
President on
Cyber Security.
Schneck recently Co-Chaired the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Congress and is leading the follow-up
effort for the first global strategic plan for CIP. Schneck is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance, a partnership between corporations, government and law
enforcement for cyber analysis to combat international cyber crime. Schneck also serves on the NIST Information
Security and Privacy Advisory Board.
Schneck was recently named the Loyola University Maryland David D. Lattanze Center 2012 Executive of the Year.
Schneck served for eight years as chairman of the National Board of Directors of the FBI’s InfraGard program and
founding president of InfraGard Atlanta, growing the InfraGard program from 2000 to over 30,000 members
nationwide. In this role, she was primarily responsible for the strategic growth and vision of the private sector side
of the InfraGard Program, and for growing the relationship between InfraGard and the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) through several Directorates. Schneck was chiefly responsible for the first Memorandum of
Understanding between DHS and InfraGard and for engaging DHS officials with all local InfraGard Chapters
nationwide. She was also responsible for creating the first overall InfraGard strategic plan in 2002, and represented
InfraGard in the creation of National Policy, such as the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.
Named one of Information Security Magazine’s Top 25 Women Leaders in Information Security, Schneck briefed
the governments of Japan, Australia and Canada by invitation on information sharing and infrastructure protection,
has worked with the UK infrastructure protection and cyber security authorities on US partnership, and was the
moderator of the White House Town Hall Meeting in Atlanta for the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace in June
of 2002. She holds three patents in high-performance and adaptive information security, and has six research
publications in the areas of information security, real-time systems, telecom and software engineering.
Before joining McAfee, Schneck was vice president of Research Integration for Secure Computing, where she
conceived and built the early intelligence practice into a full Beta program for data as a service and managed the IP
portfolio for the entire email security and intelligence suite. Prior, Schneck was the vice president Enterprise
Services for eCommSecurity. Prior to that, she served as vice president of Corporate Strategy for SecureWorks,
Inc., and was founder and chief executive officer of Avalon Communications, a provider of real-time security
technology that was acquired by SecureWorks, Inc. Schneck also held various information science technical
positions with CygnaCom Solutions, the MITRE Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation, IBM Systems
Integration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University Of Maryland’s Department of
Meteorology.
Schneck received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, and pioneered the field of information
security and security-based high-performance computing at Georgia Tech. She maintains a seat on the Advisory
Board of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Computer Science, served on the Steering Committee for the
Sam Nunn Information Security Forum as well as a term on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, and cofounded the
Georgia Tech Information Security Center and the Georgia Electronic Commerce Association's Working Group on
Information Security.
The cyber security threat landscape has changed fundamentally over the last decade from “Code Red” to mass espionage and the threat of kinetic damage. Instead of moving unsophisticated worms around the Internet, today’s adversaries are moving money, markets and jobs between countries and companies. The cyber adversaries of today are smart and fast, and have Read more…
Real-time situational awareness is vital to securing global cyber systems and helping to protect national security. A global policy is needed which enables companies to collaborate with governments to leverage innovative technology solutions that combine and leverage disparate datasets to expedite the identification of data patterns and indicators which can be used to identify potential Read more…
Tags: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, Cybercrime, identify potential cyber-threats, identity theft
Today, I was pleased to have the opportunity to speak before the Committee on Small Business at a hearing titled, Cyber Security: Protecting Your Small Business. I spoke with the Committee about the issues small businesses face in combating cyber security threats. Based on McAfee’s perspective and insights, I provided recommendations that small businesses can Read more…
Tags: cyber security, dedicated security appliances, managed security services, McAfee, Public-Private partnerships, SaaS, Small Business, Software-as-a-Service
Eugene Kaspersky has weighed in this week on Shady RAT, criticizing McAfee for exposing an operation that attacked a wide range of companies, governments, and nonprofit organizations across 14 countries and numerous sectors of the economy. Among other things, Kaspersky says he doesn’t believe it was a sophisticated attack and that our approach is alarmist. He’s missing Read more…
Tags: Advanced Persistent Threat, attacks, critical infrastructure, intellectual property, Shady RAT
Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a top ten list of cybersecurity tips for small businesses as part of National Small Business Week. I had the privilege of sitting on a panel convened by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski this morning to discuss securing and empowering small businesses with technology. Small businesses are a major Read more…
Tags: counter identity theft, credit card fraud and protection, Cybercrime, Data Protection, Mid-Market, Public Sector, Small Business
Decades ago when the early communications networks were formed, scientists rallied around the joy of sending data at light speed and happily connected once-disparate networks together to create the early stages of the “Internet.” This capability eventually enabled conversations, money transfers, massive data sharing, and the confluence of convenience and efficiencies unlike any the world Read more…
Tags: critical infrastructure, Cybercrime, enterprise, Public Sector, Stuxnet
I had the privilege of speaking before the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies at a hearing titled “Examining the Cyber Threat to Critical Infrastructure and the American Economy.” I was pleased to have the opportunity to provide McAfee’s perspective on the threats that face our nation’s infrastructure, as well as provide Read more…
Tags: critical infrastructure, Cybercrime, enterprise, Mid-Market, Night Dragon, Operation Aurora, Public Sector, Risk and Compliance
The number of cybersecurity incidents reported by federal agencies is rising dramatically, according to data from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at the Department of Homeland Security. In a single year, the number of cybersecurity incidents increased by more than 40 percent. In McAfee’s own 2009 report, “Unsecured Economies: Protecting Vital Information,” an international Read more…
Tags: Cybercrime, government, Public Sector
It’s a scary story reminiscent of the cold war era that sounds like it comes right out of a science fiction novel: Spies linked to Russia and China penetrated the U.S. electrical grid. The cyberspies have left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according a report Wednesday on the front Read more…
Posts by Dr. Phyllis Schneck