Keith Watson

Current

Benevolent Dictator at Greater Lafayette Security Professionals Group
Information Assurance Research Engineer at Purdue University
Independent Developer and Experimenter at Interocitry

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Past

Partner at Watson & Hack LLC
Product Manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Project Engineer at Professional Services (Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Member of Technical Staff at Sun Labs (Sun Microsystems, Inc.)
UNIX Systems Administator (Co-Op student) at Northern Telecom and Bell Northern Research (now Nortel Networks)

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2 more...

Education

Purdue University

Recommended

2 people have recommended Keith

Connections

141 connections

Industry

Research

Websites

Keith Watson’s Summary

Information Assurance Research Engineer at the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue University focused on a wide range of information security and assurance issues. Primarily interested in practical security and software architectures as well as intrusion detection, prevention, and especially mitigation. Experienced with technical security education of undergraduate and graduate students. Information security consultant to a federally-funded biosecurity network and a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory. Always interested in the failure of technology and the resulting impacts. Have non-security interests in social issues related to use and availability of pervasive technology and ubiquitous networking.

Keith Watson’s Specialties:

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), NSA INFOSEC Assessment Methodology (IAM) and INFOSEC Evaluation Methodology (IEM) trained and certified, Red Cross First Aid certified, security consulting, physical security assessment, policy development, technical product marketing, information assurance and security research, software development and project management.

Keith Watson’s Experience

Benevolent Dictator

Greater Lafayette Security Professionals Group

(Computer & Network Security industry)

January 2009 — Present (11 months)

Herding the information security professionals in the Greater Lafayette, Indiana area for training opportunities, certification maintenance and information exchange. Encouraging and cajoling members to participate in spreading their knowledge of information assurance and security to other professionals and those interested in the field. Organizing and leading the organizational meetings and periodically presenting technical talks.
Information Assurance Research Engineer

Purdue University

(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)

August 2002 — Present (7 years 4 months)

Manage research projects and students in information assurance and security. Manage research activities for the NSF-funded Poly^2 (pronounced "Poly-squared" -- meaning Poly-computer, Poly-network) project. Manage development and distribution of the NIJ-funded File Hound project, a digital forensics tool. Contribute content to a "cookbook" on enterprise biometrics. Propose new information security research projects. Write research grant proposals to fund research activities. Work with CERIAS corporate sponsors to address security issues. Guide independent study computer science students working on research projects. Serve as a security consultant for the National Plant Diagnostic Network, a USDA-funded agriculture biosecurity network. Conduct security audits for university research programs.
Independent Developer and Experimenter

Interocitry

(Information Technology and Services industry)

August 1992 — Present (17 years 4 months)

Constantly learning new software development techniques and tools. Experimenting with various programming languages to solve problems. Built a network of over a dozen systems in a basement to practice system management. Customized a variety of UNIX-based operating systems for specific tasks (file and print server, router, firewalls, etc). Have experience with BSD 4.3, SunOS, Solaris, Trusted Solaris, Linux (many distributions), OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, NEXTSTEP, Mac OS X, AIX, Ultrix, HP-UX, and Windows. Also, have programming experience with BASH/Bourne/Korn shell, FORTRAN, C, C++, Applescript, Objective-C, Cocoa Frameworks, Java, TCL, Ruby, and Perl.
Partner

Watson & Hack LLC

(Computer & Network Security industry)

April 2005 — February 2009 (3 years 11 months)

Information security consultancy.
Product Manager

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SUNW; Computer & Network Security industry)

January 2001 — March 2002 (1 year 3 months)

Marketing strategy and activities for the security components of the Solaris(tm) Operating Environment and related security products. Manager and content creator for the primary security portal page on www.sun.com. Provided marketing input for the management of security vulnerabilities in Sun products. Collaborated with Solaris engineering and most security experts throughout the organization.
Project Engineer

Professional Services (Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SUNW; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 1998 — January 2001 (2 years 3 months)

Supported Professional Services field engineers on security projects. Developed service methodology and training for secure Solaris projects. Assisted with development of service methodology for enterprise security assessments. Developed security software tools for Professional Services. Wrote several Sun BluePrints OnLine articles on Solaris security. Assisted with development of Titan and the Solaris Security Toolkit.
Member of Technical Staff

Sun Labs (Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SUNW; Research industry)

June 1997 — November 1998 (1 year 6 months)

Developed distributed, decentralized network security software, the Sun Enterprise Network Security Service (SENSS). Conducted security research. Experimented with methods to detect vulnerabilities, manage patches, and collect security reports.
UNIX Systems Administator (Co-Op student)

Northern Telecom and Bell Northern Research (now Nortel Networks)

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; NT; Information Technology and Services industry)

January 1995 — August 1995 (8 months)

Worked as Co-Op student during undergraduate education. Responsible for central UNIX user account management for North Carolina operations, second-line support for trouble tickets, and technical project work. Provided periodic after-hours support.

Keith Watson’s Education

Purdue University

BS , Computer Science , August 1992 — May 1997

Dean's List (Fall 1992, Spring 1993), Semester Honors (Fall 1992, Spring 1993, Fall 1993)

Activities and Societies:

Member of Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma (freshman honoraries), Purdue Student Chapter of the ACM, the Offramp group, Purdue Daemons, independent security research, independent network experimentation

Additional Information

Keith Watson’s Websites:

Keith Watson’s Interests:

information assurance, operating system design, security assessment and evaluation, amateur radio (callsign: KF4HWT), classic arcade games

Keith Watson’s Groups:

The Greater Lafayette Security Professionals Group, International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2, Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), Purdue Amateur Radio Club