George Mason University

GMU has been part of a major NATO Science & Technology Organization effort to standardize Command and Control – Simulation interoperability for coalitions. This presentation will overview the project and describe recent major results, including NATO CWIX testing and standardization.

Dr. J. Mark Pullen is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence (C4I) and Cyber. He has been with GMU since 1992, during which time he has served as Principal Investigator for 49 research projects with total budget over $17 million and taught 57 sections of 12 different courses. His doctorate in Computer Science is from George Washington University; he also holds degrees in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University. Previously he was a Program Manager at DARPA and an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the US Military Academy West Point, NY. Dr. Pullen’s research interests include networked multimedia applications emphasizing command and control, networked education and training, distributed virtual simulation, and interoperation of command and control with simulations. In the last named area he serves as Co-Chair of the SISO Product Development group for C2SIM. Dr. Pullen is a Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the ACM, and licensed Professional Engineer. He received the IEEE Harry Diamond Memorial Award and the Defense Superior Service Award and was a leader in the team that received the NATO Scientific Achievement Award for 2013.

Join me on a journey into the darker side of supply chains and cyber (in)security. Learn why the tools and techniques you use today to mitigate supply chain risk are useless against the advanced stealth techniques we discovered in the wild.

Arrested hacker turned NSA offensive cyber operator, Terry is the co-founder of ReFirm Labs, a company that develops platforms to discover sophisticated domestic and foreign cyber threats lurking inside the firmware of connected devices.

Terry began his career as a penetration tester at Deloitte and joined the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2002. As a Global Network Vulnerability Analyst at NSA, Terry used his hacking skills to electronically track down foreign adversaries and locate nefarious backdoors in embedded devices that could threaten national security.

Following his departure from the NSA in 2007, Terry founded Tactical Network Solutions (TNS), focusing on the development of offensive cyber capabilities in support of U.S. Special Operations Command and other Intelligence agencies from allied nations. Today, TNS specializes in offensive cyber capabilities and training for the military, intelligence community, and the Five Eyes. In 2017, he co-founded ReFirm Labs, a spin-off from TNS, to sell an automated firmware analysis solution called the Centrifuge Platform.

Along with its commercial line of products, ReFirm Labs is responsible for Binwalk, widely recognized as the leading open source firmware extraction and reverse engineering tool. It is used by cybersecurity professionals across the defense, academic, public, and private sectors today.

Terry earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, Economics and Law & Public Policy from Case Western Reserve University, and a Master of Science degree in Network Security from Capitol College (now Capitol Technology University).

Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Mr. Plankey served on the National Security Council as the Director for Maritime and Pacific Cybersecurity Policy, where he designed national security policy to address threats from cyberspace. He has also served as the Global Cyber Intelligence Advisor for BP, and as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for U.S. Navy Intelligence.

Sean served 13 years as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, including a tour as the Offensive Weapons & Tactics Chief at US Cyber Command. During this time, he completed a deployment to Afghanistan, where he was the first U.S. Coast Guard Officer deployed to Afghanistan to conduct offensive cyber operations. He also held the role of Operations Officer and Law Enforcement Boarding Team Leader for two Coast Guard Cutters, one deployed on the Great Lakes and the other in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Sean Plankey is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He holds multiple professional cybersecurity and information technology certifications.