mhm. Yeah, mm Yeah. Welcome everybody.
I'm Scott Midkiff, uh, Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at Virginia Tech and also served as the university's
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer.
Um, hope you had a great experience this week
at the Virginia regional cyber security bootcamp. I'm sure
you've learned a lot. Events like this are very
important as we look at developing cybersecurity expertise for the
United States and it's really been Virginia tax honor and
great pleasure to host this event this week. I
also hope you've had a lot of fun, uh
had a chance to see some of our campus,
haven't spent all of your time behind a screen,
but maybe you have. Uh huh. Also just
as a little bit of a word of advice for
our visitors, I know some of you have fun
and kind of unique way. So I turned my
cell phone off before coming in. So uh,
you know, always a good tip in this kind
of an audience. Right? So, um,
we're really fortunate to have a distinguished set of guests
that will share some remarks with us and uh to
be part of the recognitions that will happen uh later
in in this uh ceremony. So first it's my
great pleasure to introduce Timothy D Sands, who is
the 16th president of Virginia Tech. Dr Sands joined
Virginia Tech just on June one of this year,
although he's been making a number of visits to campus
before this, so he's he's not not new to
campus, but fairly new prior to coming to Virginia
Tech Dr Sands was the provost and executive vice president
for academic Affairs at Purdue University, A role he
had served in since 2000, since April 2010,
and he served as acting president of Purdue from June
2012 until January 2013. He has his degrees in
Engineering Physics and material science from the University of California
Berkeley. Um He was at Telcordia, followed by
being on the faculty at Berkeley and then joined Perdue
as the director of the work Nanotechnology center. So
I actually have the pleasure of having dr sands not
only as president Virginia Tech, but also a colleague
and electrical and computer engineering, which is a great
thing. Uh he is a scholar as well as
an administrator, recognized for his work and uh as
being a fellow of the Institute of Electrical Electronic Engineers
, the materials research Society and the National Academy of
Inventors. So please join me in welcoming Dr Tim
Sands. Thank you. Vice President Midkiff for inviting
me. I hope you've had a good time here
on the Virginia Tech campus. I've I've been learning
it right along with you. As a as vice
president, Midkiff said, I hope you have gotten
out of the the, the building occasionally. I
don't know, we'll find out. I'll learn more
about what you've done I think later today, but
it's great to be here. And I'd also like
to acknowledge the presence of our Secretary of Technology,
Karen Jackson, who's joining us and we'll be here
to make some remarks and help hand out the awards
. It's wonderful show of support from the commonwealth of
Virginia. As you of course know, there's a
nationwide shortage of cybersecurity professionals, uh, and there
is one now, but if you think out a
few years and obviously, you know that you wouldn't
be here, uh, there is a tremendous need
that is building up not only within the federal government
, for security reasons, national and homeland security,
but also in industry. I've had the chance of
being at Purdue to interact with a large number of
uh ceos of large companies and this is probably the
biggest concern they've got when you really get down to
what the future is going to be about. The
internet of things, whatever you wanna call it.
There are so many vulnerabilities even for industry. So
it's such a broad need and a wonderful opportunity for
you. Programs like the U. S. Cyber
challenge create or help to create a pipeline between the
talent, between the talent that you represent and the
opportunities in industry and government. We need to grow
the number and the skill level of the professionals who
serve in those roles. And Virginia Tech's delighted to
partner in uh with the U. S. Cyber
challenge to host this regional cyber security bootcamp. It's
just one example of how Virginia tech is striving to
do its part in this critical workforce need in cybersecurity
. You probably know that this isn't the only thing
we do in cybersecurity. A lot of our faculty
across the university work on issues of cybersecurity related to
cybersecurity as part of the research programs and you probably
know better than I, that it's a fascinating area
, not only the technology aspect of it, but
it brings in ethics and policy and international relations,
It's it's extraordinarily broad and complicated field. And so
we're pleased to be represented in almost every corner of
cybersecurity just to give you a few examples of some
of the other programs here, uh you may not
be able to want to participate in them, but
spread the word for us. We just started a
new minor in cybersecurity that recognizes undergraduates who developed a
deep technical skills in the field, and we've got
a new graduate certificate in cybersecurity as well, and
we're really pleased to see those grow with funding from
the National Science Foundation. We've established the Virginia tech
cyber scholars program. This is a cyber core uh
scholarship for service program and support students for the final
two years that are undergraduate program and then into a
follow on year for a master's degree. In addition
to this large and growing sponsored research program and all
the new academic programs, we've got the hume Center
for National Security and Technology and I've had a chance
. It's one of the first things I did when
I became president is to visit the hume center.
Um It's located here and in Arlington Virginia. And
uh it's it's pretty extraordinary is focused to a large
extent on preparing students for technical careers in national security
and the Intelligence community through programs like the cyber scholars
and the Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence. Um
All right, well we've also got our I.
T. Security lab directed by randy martini who you
all know quite well standing back here. Uh And
uh that is uh provides undergraduate and graduate students with
cybersecurity experience in an operational environment that uses a teaching
hospital model which I think is a very appropriate way
not only for this topic but almost anything we do
to look at that blend of hands on and minds
on experiences. So I know you had a very
interesting program this week uh understand you learned something about
National Security Windows Internals and I heard just a moment
ago that you had at some a module and car
hacking. I really need to find out more about
that. That's a interesting title. I think it's
probably what I think it is but uh you'll have
to explain that to me so I wish you the
best in your, the development of your career.
I think you've got a bright future ahead of you
. You've already achieved quite a bit to be here
, but we need you, the nation needs you
. But so does are, so does our industry
. And so I look forward to seeing where you
end up and what you do for the country and
what you do for our economy in the future.
Thank you for joining us here at Virginia Tech and
look forward to uh the presentation of the awards.
Thanks. Our next guest is john Condon, who
is the founder and chairman of the Ambit Group.
And I'm actually gonna dispense with any introduction uh,
for john, because I understand his presentation will give
us some some background in his, in his personal
history, john, thank you. Hello everybody.
And I'm glad I was able to get here when
I did so. I was able to catch the
last hour or so the activities and I was fascinated
. Um, let me tell you what a pleasure
it is to uh, to join you today.
And I congratulate each of you for your commitment as
cyber warriors as a lead into my comments today.
Let me share a very recent personal experience. About
a week ago, my wife and I experienced something
out of the ordinary. Our home was struck by
lightning and over the next several days we came to
the realization of just how insidious and disruptive this incursion
in our household by mother nature has caused and could
be several days later, we're still dealing with a
multitude of contractors, You know, many of them
, the pep goes and Comcast and Verizon and it
goes on and on. Our wires were literally fried
, as were several of our systems and related equipment
. The bottom line is that our household is both
disrupted and dysfunctional. Does this sound familiar? So
put yourself in the place of anybody, any company
, any government agency, any entity that's ever been
hacked. It's like a lightning strike that comes out
of nowhere. You're totally unsuspecting. And then wham
it happens today. We are all becoming more and
more aware of the cyber threat. Thanks to the
media and the many reports of wholesale cyber assaults.
We are all much more aware of this threat.
But just what are we doing about it? Are
we standing on the sidelines? Are we just hoping
that it will miss us? Not me. It
will never happen to me. It happens to those
folks we read about in the news or the government
, the government will take care of it. I
don't need to be worried about this. Well,
human nature tends to make people think less of threats
and I think that it just won't happen to them
. And in this light, I'm of the opinion
that the average american takes a dim and even a
blind view up the likelihood that a cyber attack will
mess up their day. Indeed, I'd wager a
bet with strong odds that the average american has no
idea of the potential of a major cyberattack on the
nation's infrastructure. They simply don't think of these things
. I'm reminded of how ill prepared most coastal communities
are for hurricanes, even in the face of monumental
data that tells them it's coming their way. Just
a few weeks ago, there was national news about
a bridge on a major highway in Delaware being shut
down due to structural deficiencies. Most of you probably
have not heard another peep about this. But if
you happen to live south of Wilmington, Delaware and
have a job in Wilmington, then your life has
changed dramatically. This bridge is going to be closed
for months, not just a few days or weeks
for several months. So you're one hour commute has
just turned it into a nightmarish, 3-4 hour commute
, Do that Times two and you've added essentially another
whole day to your schedule. Now, hackers had
no role in this debacle. This was caused by
human error and negligence and had absolutely nothing to do
with any systems technology. The result, however,
has had a horrible impact on thousands of commuters who
never saw this coming and were totally unprepared for the
consequences. So I tell you about my lightning strike
and the Delaware bridge shutdown, only to place an
exclamation mark on what it might be like on a
national level where we to come under a massive,
full scale and coordinated cyber attack on our nation's infrastructure
. The consequences are almost unimaginable. So this in
my mind is why each of you and this noble
role that you have chosen means so much to our
country and our national security. I served in our
Navy for many years and I was privileged to command
two warships during my career. Each and every sailor
on those ships participated in a program known as preventive
maintenance program. This program consisted of a combination of
daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly procedures, maintenance
procedures for every piece of equipment on the ship.
All of these maintenance activities were aimed at ensuring the
consistently safe and reliable operations of every single component of
that ship. As a junior officer, fresh out
of the Naval Academy, I recall my very first
commanding officer explaining the preventive maintenance program to a number
of the junior junior officers on board that ship.
One of the things that he said that day has
stuck with me forever, and I took heart in
his words when I was the skipper of those two
ships that I was privileged to command, he said
something to this effect. Our sailors do their work
every day and the ship sails along with no complications
or breakdowns, and we can easily fall into the
habit of just taking this for granted. And that
would be a huge mistake. So never forget to
thank your sailors for their good work. You may
not see them at their work because it goes on
day and night, but you see the results when
our ship operates smoothly and most of all safely.
Ladies and gentlemen, in your work as cyber warriors
, most of what you do will not be seen
. But I can promise you this. The results
will be felt every day when the normality of daily
life across our nation is protected and preserved by your
good work. Again, I congratulate each of you
as you embark on this most important and noble journey
and I wish you only the best in your bright
future. Thank you. And I believe next we're
going to have a video from Governor Mcauliffe who I
think would have liked to have been here today rather
than dealing with the budget issues in Richmond. But
my understanding from the press is that he will be
signing the budget today and xing out parts of it
I guess. And so we'll see what happens.
But he did take the time to create a video
that will now watch. I wish I could be
there personally. I congratulate you for participating in the
U. S. Cyber Challenge summer camp. You
are to be commended for the dedication and hard work
it took to reach this event and that is when
the real work started. I know you have had
an intense week filled with training mentorship guides and even
capture the flag competition and I hope will propel your
ambitions and aspirations in the field of cybersecurity. I
want to thank the U. S. Cyber Challenge
staff, your instructors, Virginia tech and all of
you for being part of such an important program.
Cybersecurity is an evolving industry that offers great promise for
growth now and into the future. Securing our information
and assets is a top priority for Virginia and frankly
the nation and workforce development is at the core of
the industry's development. That is why. Your participation
in the U. S. Cyber challenge is critical
both your own career ambitions and the long term security
of our country. Congratulations again. And I wish
you success in your future pursuits. We are fortunate
today to have the the governor and and uh the
commonwealth of Virginia represented by Karen Jackson, who is
the secretary of technology for the commonwealth. Um I've
actually known Karen a long time, she has been
with the Center for Innovative technology or was with the
Center for Innovative technology for many years, which is
uh their role has evolved. But generally it is
it has tried to spur technology development, entrepreneurship,
new industry and technology areas in the commonwealth. And
Virginia Tech has had the opportunity to work closely with
Karen, looking at extending broadband to underserved communities and
really understanding that very important problem, making sure that
all of our citizens have the opportunity for good connectivity
to the internet and all the things that it provides
. In 2009, Karen was appointed as the Deputy
Secretary of Technology by then Governor Tim Kaine. And
she continued to serve in that role in the administration
of Governor robert Mcdonald as governor, Mcauliffe came into
office, he made the decision to appoint Karen as
the Secretary of Technology, which was an excellent choice
uh in my opinion. And uh in this role
she oversees uh in addition to really being a spokesperson
for technology and really trying to make sure that the
commonwealth uses innovative uses information technology and in efficient and
innovative ways. She oversees two agencies, the Center
for Innovative Technology which she has a long history with
as well as Vida, which is the Virginia Information
Technology Information technology Agency which deals with a lot of
the I. T. Issues for for the commonwealth
. So it's my pleasure to uh welcome Karen Jackson
here. Good afternoon. How many had a great
week? Yeah I think maybe there's a few chaperones
or parents back there that didn't raise their hands.
I'm sure they're not campers. Um So on behalf
of the governor um congratulations for what you've accomplished so
far and all the things that you're going to accomplish
. He would love to have been here today.
He loves events like this and I can honestly tell
you that cyber security is at the top of his
priority list. Um Even before he was inaugurated we
had conversations about the fact that we needed to do
everything we could to make sure that Virginia is as
secure as it can possibly be. Um Like some
of the other folks have said I've been a victim
of a cyber pack. Um And I think that
the piece that astounded me most mind was on the
healthcare side. My healthcare records were actually tapped into
. Um It was an internal hack and it was
the records were actually taken by an L. P
. N. Who was working inside the health care
system. And before they were able to detect it
several hundreds thousands of records had been had been stolen
. For that. I have the pleasure of being
able to check my credit record for free to make
sure that you know nothing happens to me. So
when it does hit home it is disruptive. It's
very frustrating. Um But I think I learned a
very important lesson since I do ever see the I
. T. Agencies for the commonwealth which holds Oliver
citizen data, birth records, death records, tax
records, social security numbers all lie within our purview
of things. We have to pay attention to.
Um The area of internal hack is something that we
don't pay enough attention to. We pay play a
great deal of time looking outside our own walls and
we try to secure against enemies that are not here
, but when the enemy is actually on the inside
of your own organization, that's an entirely different Ballgame
. And so we are working very hard to make
sure that we're secure. We have a Chief Information
security officer, Mike Watson who's done a lot of
work. We just recently, I think we were
the only state or at least the first state to
step out and adopt in this framework that was released
earlier this year. And we currently stood up a
cyber condition that is going to look at all aspects
of cybersecurity in the commonwealth, both from an economic
development standpoint, we want Virginia to be a cyber
hub for the nation. We feel like with assets
such as Virginia tech and the hume center and others
that we have a great footprint to stand on and
we really want to maximize on all of those assets
and activities to make Virginia a vibrant place for camps
like this, for other activities. So any of
you who are not from Virginia, you'd like to
stay, come back. It's a great place to
be. So we're gonna be looking at economic development
workforce and education can't say enough about that without the
workforce. The security won't happen. And that's a
scary thought because we are trying to prepare people for
jobs that we didn't see 20 years ago. And
so our systems are not adequately aligned for the cyber
jobs that we need. And obviously places like tech
, you be a women marry and others are taking
great steps to try to catch up and put programs
in place. But we really This training should have
started 10 years ago. That's just the reality in
order for us to have the workforce that we need
. So we're gonna spend a lot of time working
on workforce and education securing internal networks um, in
just stop and think about a government for a second
. We have energy dependencies, we have telecom dependencies
, we have water dependencies and with this new internet
of things and more and more things being attached to
the internet from fitbits all the way through control systems
for major systems that we depend on on a daily
basis. There are a multitude of areas where we
are vulnerable and so we are going to be working
with our partners to do what we can to make
sure that not only are cyber houses in order,
but there's is as well, we'll also be looking
at cyber crime, it's inevitable people are going to
do things they shouldn't. And we're going to be
looking at how we need to deal with those folks
once they have committed the atrocities. We have the
Virginia State Police, we have the Department of Homeland
Security, we have our I. T. Shop
vita all that have some piece of the jurisdictional responsibilities
for cyber but in the case of an attack who
goes in first who does remediation who Obviously the punishment
of the criminals falls to the law enforcement side.
But there's a whole hierarchy. There is not something
that the states have ever dealt with before. And
so we're working our way through that process to figure
out how we respond if and when we get attacked
, one of our major suppliers gets attacked or you
know even a major business in the commonwealth that we
rely on what can we do to be there to
help and make sure that our citizens are made whole
as quickly as possible. Um I obviously cannot say
enough. We actually were just chosen as an FAA
test center. If anybody thinks about unmanned vehicles and
unmanned aerial systems, probably cyber security is top of
the line of things that we need to be looking
at. We cannot afford for somebody to hack into
the control systems of one of those birds and actually
bring it down. The industry has been fraught with
a lot of criticism. Our military friends who named
their vehicles drone, predator, global hawk, valiant
angel didn't do us a whole lot of favors because
everybody sees these drones unmanned systems as predatory in nature
. And so we've done a lot of homework and
google helped us out a lot when they not google
, sorry amazon helped us out a lot when they
decided they wanted to actually deliver packages using an unmanned
vehicle because it demystified and it made it something fun
. And so now that we've crossed that chasm and
we're into that cyber security is something that we put
the highest, highest priority on in terms of our
U. S. Operations and actually Virginia text in
the lead on that project. So we're gonna be
turning to them as well as some of the other
partner universities to make sure that those systems are as
safe as they can possibly be going forward. They
also have a lot of port activity. Um We
have some of the largest ports on the East coast
and securing those we have preparing for the Panamax ships
that will be coming up through the Panama canal.
Again, if you think about a gPS jammer and
what it can do to the course of a major
ship, that's scary. Especially when you look at
the port facilities that could be jeopardized by that.
And the ports themselves are more and more mechanized and
again, good GPS jammer that you can get for
a very little amount of money and a dangerous person
on the other side could wreak havoc in the commonwealth
pretty quickly. So we are committed to cyber.
We have Richard Clarke who was a three time presidential
advisor in the White House as the co chair along
with myself on the Cyber Commission and we are forming
workgroups to look at all these topics and would encourage
you, you're the bright minds. You guys are
the ones leading the charge into the future. We're
just trying to harness your energy and get behind you
, as you tell us what we need to do
to secure not only the commonwealth, but also the
nation. So congratulations on behalf of the governor.
Um, and we look forward to hosting more of
these events as we go forward. Look forward to
coming back and partnering with tech on other cyber related
events. But honestly, thank you for all that
you're doing because we need your expertise now and into
the future. So thank you very much for having
me here. Thank you, Karen. Yeah.