About - Advisory Committee

SecTor is very fortunate to have an impressive group of leading security and industry professionals on our Advisory Committee. These individuals play a critical role bringing the world's best speakers and minds to the Toronto stage for the benefit of all in attendance. If networking and being plugged into the Security Community are priorities for you, then we highly recommend introducing yourself to these folks.

SecTor acknowledges and extends our gratitude for the contributions made by the following persons.

Hint: Click on the name to view Bio of Advisory Committee members.

	James Arlen		Stephen Ibaraki
	Robert Beggs		Dave Lewis
	Brian Bourne		Sheldon Malm
	Rodney Buike		Dave Millier
	Robert Buren		Brian O'Higgins
	Bruce Cowper		Eldon Sprickerhoff
	Leigh Honeywell		Gord Taylor

James Arlen, CISA

James Arlen, CISA, is Principal at Push The Stack Consulting providing security consulting services to the utility and financial verticals. He has been involved with implementing a practical level of information security in Fortune 500, TSE 100, and major public-sector corporations for 18+ years. James is also a contributing analyst with Securosis and has a recurring column on Liquidmatrix Security Digest. Best described as: "Infosec geek, hacker, social activist, author, speaker, and parent." His areas of interest include organizational change, social engineering, blinky lights and shiny things.

Robert Beggs, CISSP CISA

Robert Beggs is the founder CEO of DigitalDefence. As leader of Canada's leading incident response and forensics consultancy, he has served clients in the banking, insurance, brokerage, and mortgage industries, as well as several small and medium enterprises from a variety of market verticals. He has been responsible for the technical leadership and project management of more than 200 consulting engagements, including policy development and review, standards compliance attack and penetration testing of wired and wireless networks, third party security assessments, incident response, and other consulting projects. His experience with military, financial, and other systems related to critical infrastructure have prepared him to provide a high degree of practical security.

Before working as a Senior Consultant to one of Canada's largest financial institutions, Robert was employed by Netigy, a global network and security infrastructure firm based in San Jose. He has also worked for Nortel Networks in the Systems Engineering group as a specialist responsible for developing new IP-based services for global telecommunications clients. Robert teaches Information Security at Ryerson University and is also the lead instructor for DigitalDefence, providing instruction in ethical hacking, incident response, and data forensics. Robert is a founder and proud sponsor of the Toronto Area Security Klatch, TASK, North America's largest user group focused solely on security issues. He holds the MBA in Science and Technology from Queen's University, and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and a Certified Information Systems Auditor.

Brian Bourne, CISSP, MCSE:Security

Brian is the President of CMS Consulting Inc, a Toronto integration firm and award winning Microsoft Gold partner. He is an industry expert with over 17 years of IT experience. He maintains his technical edge through consulting and participation with numerous technology related events. Brian maintains the latest technical designations (such as CISSP, MCITP:EA and MVP:Enterprise Security) and leverages his past experiences to provide leadership to the growing team of CMS Consultants. A regular attendee of events such as BlackHat/Defcon and with a long standing interest in security, Brian particularly enjoys speaking about both attack and defense techniques. Brian is a member and co-founder of TASK, a Toronto based security user group now with over 2000 active members. He is also a founder and director of Black Arts Illuminated, the organization which runs SecTor, Canada's premier IT Security Education Conference.
Ways to connect with Brian:
Twitter: @BrianBourne
LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/brianbourne

Rodney Buike

Rodney Buike is a Senior Infrastructure Consultant with CMS Consulting Inc. with over 10 years of experience with customers of all sizes.  Rodney has spent the last 4 years at Microsoft as a Technology Evangelist sharing knowledge and experience on core Microsoft technologies.  Rodney is focused on cloud computing, specifically private cloud, virtualization and management technologies.  Rodney maintains connections to the Toronto technology community by participating in TASK, IT Pro Toronto, Halton IT Pros and other local technology community groups and events.  He has spent time advising national and local non-profits such as Kid's Help Phone and Carpenter Hospice in Burlington. 

Robert Buren, MA

Robert Buren brings to SecTor a diversity of technology, process improvement, business development and marketing consulting experience. Over the past few years, Robert has delivered security focused presentations to executive-focused audiences at Microsoft Canada, Dell Canada and Infosecurity Canada.

Robert is involved in the IT security community as a co-founder and Steering Committee member of TASK, the Toronto Area Security Klatch. Since founded in 2005, TASK has become North America's largest IT Security Usergroup. Robert Buren holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario and a Master's degree from the University of Victoria. He is qualified as a Six Sigma Black Belt, a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process.

Bruce Cowper

Founding member of SecTor and TASK and Senior Security Strategist, Microsoft Corp

Leigh Honeywell

Leigh Honeywell is an independent security and VOIP consultant, specializing in the Asterisk Open Source PBX. She studied Computer Science at the University of Toronto and worked in the Emerging Technologies Group at Bell Canada before starting her own consultancy, Adanix Solutions. 

Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP, DF/NPA, CNP

Working with technology since 1965, Stephen Ibaraki is a multiple Hall of Fame Inductee and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. A few of his more than 100 international recognitions, awards, board roles for a lifetime of outstanding contributions are profiled by the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) , where he is a founding “fellow.” Upon receiving his lifetime Advanced Technology Award in 2008, Premier Gordon Campbell thanked him for his "commitment to industry excellence."

Dave Lewis

Founder, Liquidmatrix Security Digest (liquidmatrix.org).  Dave Lewis is a security practitioner with over 15 years of experience in this field. Mr. Lewis is responsible for managing all day to day operations at Liquidmatrix in a addition to his role as manager of security consulting for a Canadian financial institution. Prior to his current role, Mr. Lewis worked as a defense contractor and security consultant to clients such as the FBI, US Navy, US Postal Service and the US Department of Defense to name a few. He also has extensive experience in with smart grid and smart metering security. As an active security blogger he manages to maintain his technical knowledge base through voracious reading, writing and participation with numerous security industry related events as attendee, presenter and press. An accidental security researcher, Mr. Lewis and has published discovered vulnerabilities for products from vendors such as Cisco, Adobe, Websense, Oracle and Symantec.

When not at work Dave can be found spending time with his family, playing bass guitar and polishing his “brick of enlightenment”.

Sheldon Malm

Sheldon Malm is a 15 year Information Technology & Security veteran, having served Global Fortune 500 companies in the areas of Governance, Risk, Compliance, Security, eBusiness and IT Operations throughout his career. Sheldon is Senior Director of Security Strategy and Head of Strategic Partners & Alliances at Rapid7, providing guidance for corporate direction, strategic partnerships, and product strategy for the company’s NeXpose and Metasploit platforms. He joined Rapid7 from nCircle Network Security, where he was Director of Security Research & Development and led Canadian Operations.

Prior to joining nCircle, he spent nearly a decade at a Global Fortune 500 Financial Services company, holding senior leadership positions within Information Security, IT Infrastructure, and eBusiness. His expertise focuses on Vulnerability Management, Risk Quantification, Security Operations, Host Configuration and Compliance, Policy and Governance Best Practices, BCP/DRP, Incident Response, and Identity Management. As a Management Consultant for leading Software Vendors, he has provided guidance for Corporate Strategy, Research and Development, Product Management, Business Development, and Operational Effectiveness.

Sheldon is an active participant in several industry working groups. His heroes include Norbert Wiener, Jimi Hendrix, Trogdor (the Burninator) and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sheldon holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Western Ontario and completed his Executive Development at York University’s Schulich School of Business.

Dave Millier

Dave Millier is well-known in the Canadian High-Tech marketplace, where he's been helping customers with their security and networking needs for over 15 years. His career has taken many interesting turns; he has operated numerous businesses including a successful consumer ISP, a retail computer operation, a data hosting facility and business ISP, a boutique consulting firm, and most recently his organization Sentry Metrics, where as the co-founder he created and brought to market industry-leading Security and Risk Compliance Dashboard theSentry.

Over the years Dave has presented at many network and security conferences including Network World and Comdex, among others. He has been involved in the design, engineering, and implementation of many enterprise corporate networks and security solutions, and has driven the deployment of numerous 300+ node VPN networks for both educational and government clients. His areas of expertise include in-depth knowledge of firewalls, IDS/IPS, and logfile analysis, and he has extensive exposure to most commercial security products in use today.

Dave acted as the Director of Security for a start-up online Investment firm, and supported them through a successful purchase by a much larger online trading company. Dave assists as a security advisor to the senior management of a number of organizations, acting as a translator of sorts between the various technologies available today and the diverse needs of every business, allowing his clients to continue to build their businesses with confidence.

Dave is an avid (amateur!) dual sport motorcycle rider, and loves to spend his spare time off-roading.

Brian O'Higgins, President, Brian O'Higgins and Associates

Brian O'Higgins is an executive with over 20 years as a leader in security technology development for enterprise and government customers—possibly known best for his role pioneering PKI (public key infrastructure)— and as the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Entrust, a leading Internet Security Company. He was also a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Third Brigade, a provider of security products for physical and virtualized servers that was acquired by Trend Micro in 2009. Brian's approach to security is both visionary and pragmatic. He is a frequent presenter at security and industry events around the globe. In 2008, he was appointed as a delegate to contribute to the Global Cybersecurity Agenda of the International Telecommunications Union. He is also a founding author and contributor to the Cloud Security Alliance.

Brian's current list of affiliations includes advisory board positions with Defence R&D Canada, the Ontario Centers of Excellence, the NSERC Internetworked Systems Security Project, the Global Institute for Cybersecurity Research Alliance, and a few startup companies in the IT security market. In addition, he serves on the boards of Recognia, Fischer International, and Mobio Identity Systems.

Brian is an avid skier on both snow and water, and a competitive marathon runner.

Eldon Sprickerhoff

Eldon Sprickerhoff has over 15 years of experience in the GTA and NYC IT communities working on security vulnerability analysis, architecture, and countermeasures. In 2001 he co-founded eSentire, Inc., which has grown to be the leading Managed Security Services Provider for alternative investment firms (including hedge funds) with sensors deployed across North America, the UK, and Asia. He holds a B.Math. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and is both CISSP and CISA certified.
Currently, his free-time activities revolve around family, epicurean adventures, and aikido.

Gord Taylor has been working at one of the "Big 5" Canadian Financial Institutions for the past 10 years - spending the last 6 of these as Senior Security Specialist in the Information Security group. Gord is a self-proclaimed geek who has managed to thrive (survive?) in an international, corporate atmosphere while remaining sequestered (chained?) within a small cubicle (cell?). This unique view-point of security has allowed Gord to develop a practical, "cost-effective, risk-based" (e.g. "secure enough") view of the security industry while providing the flexibility to be knees-deep involved a very broad range of security technologies and solutions.

Gord enjoys spending the time to ensure others can learn from his mistakes and successes, as long as they're willing to also share their own highs and lows. He can be characterized as someone who loves a heated discussion and is clearly not afraid of his own opinion.