American computer security expert
Rebecca "Becky" Gurley Bace
(1955?2017) was an American computer security expert and pioneer in intrusion detection. She spent 12 years at the US
National Security Agency
where she created the Computer Misuse and Anomaly Detection
(CMAD) research program. She was known as the "den mother of computer security".
[1]
She was also influential in the early stages of intelligence community
venture capital
and was a major player in
Silicon Valley
investments in cyber security technology.
[2]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Bace grew up in rural Alabama as one of seven children and was diagnosed with
epilepsy
in adolescence. Her mother was a
war bride
from
Japan
following
World War II
and her father was a self-educated
teamster
from Alabama.
[3]
Due to prevailing attitudes about the illness and about women, her neurologist suggested that she stay home and collect disability following high school.
[4]
She credited a local librarian and family friend, Bertha Nel Allen, for the encouragement to apply for college and scholarships. She won scholarships from charitable foundations set up by
Betty Crocker
and
Jimmy Hoffa
in her senior year of high school, and in 1973 she was accepted to the
University of Alabama at Birmingham
as the only woman in engineering.
[3]
Because of financial hardship and frequent employment interruptions, she took eight years of classes at various schools to earn her degree.
[5]
Bace first became interested in computing during her freshman year working with
punch cards
programming
Fortran
and
COBOL
on an
IBM mainframe
and got her first engineering job while teaching at an engineering lab. She was approached by a couple of
Xerox
technicians who needed to fill
affirmative action
requirements, and accepted a job as a specialist repairing copier machines.
[3]
Of the experience she stated that she faced significant gender and racial bias, and that "sometimes customers would raise a ruckus for having to deal with [her] because they believed they had been given "second best" when [she] showed up, even though [she] was better educated than most of the men."
[3]
Career
[
edit
]
After graduation in 1984, Bace started working at the
NSA
, and while searching for a flexible job to allow her to care for her
autistic
son who was later diagnosed with
leukemia
, she took an assignment in 1989 in the
National Computer Security Center
.
[4]
The NCSC was chartered as part of the NSA expressly to deal with computer security issues for the
Department of Defense
and the intelligence community. Bace served as program manager for
intrusion detection
research, specifically on transferring research into the relatively new commercial security products market.
[6]
She played a pivotal role in the apprehension of
Kevin Mitnick
, proving that
trace back
and capture were possible beyond the theoretical context.
[5]
She also provided some of the seed funding for computer security labs at
UC Davis
and
Purdue University
.
[1]
Following the death of her son, Bace went to serve as the deputy security officer at
Los Alamos National Laboratory
in the Computing, Information and Communications Division.
[7]
She left Los Alamos in 1998 and started Infidel, Inc., a security consulting company.
[3]
In 2002, she signed on as a
venture capital
consultant at Trident Capital in
Silicon Valley
. Bace also briefly served as Technical VP of the Cyber Security Practice for
In-Q-Tel
, the investment arm of the US Intelligence Community, and before her death she served as chief strategist for the Center for Forensics, Information Technology, and Security (CFITS) at the
University of South Alabama
.
[8]
As a venture capitalist, she provided expert advice to a generation of security startups, including
Qualys
,
Sygate
,
iRobot
,
Arxan Technologies
,
HyTrust
, and
Neohapsis
.
[9]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Multiple awards have been established in Bace's memory including the Rebecca Bace Pioneer Award for Defensive Security and the Rebecca Gurley Bace SWSIS Scholarship.
[10]
[11]
Books
[
edit
]
- Bace, Rebecca Gurley (2000).
Intrusion Detection
. Indianapolis, IN: Macmillan Technical.
ISBN
1-57870-185-6
.
- Smith, Fred Chris; Bace, Rebecca Gurley (2003).
A Guide to Forensic Testimony: The Art and Practice of Presenting Testimony as an Expert Technical Witness
. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
ISBN
0-201-75279-4
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Saita, Anne (September 2003).
"Rebecca 'Becky' Base: From government to guiding security startups"
.
SearchSecurity
. TechTarget. Archived from
the original
on 19 April 2017
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
Morgan, Steve (21 March 2017).
"Goodbye Mama Bear, the cybersecurity community will miss you"
.
Cybersecurity Business Report
. CSO Online. Archived from
the original
on 19 April 2017
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Thieme, Richard (1 April 2002).
"IDS Den Mother: An Interview with Becky Bace ? Thiemeworks"
.
www.thiemeworks.com
. Archived from
the original
on 19 April 2017
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Heiser, Deborah (16 April 2017).
"Remembering Becky Bace"
.
I.M.AGE Institute
. Archived from
the original
on 19 April 2017
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
a
b
McGraw, Gary (May 2007).
"Silver Bullet Talks with Becky Bace"
(PDF)
.
IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine
.
5
(3): 6?9.
doi
:
10.1109/MSP.2007.70
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 19 April 2017
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
Romeo, Jim (4 August 2014).
"2014 Women in IT Security: Becky Bace"
.
SC Magazine US
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
Yost, Jeffrey (31 July 2012).
"Oral history interview with Rebecca G. Bace"
.
University of Minnesota
.
hdl
:
11299/144022
.
- ^
"Becky Bace, President/CEO, Infidel, Inc.; Chief Strategist for the Center for Forensics, Information Technology, and Security (CFITS) at the University of South Alabama"
.
Women in Security and Privacy
. 28 December 2016
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
"Rebecca Bace"
.
O'Reilly Media
. Retrieved
18 April
2017
.
- ^
Allen, Allison Miller, Courtney (2017-08-17).
"Announcing the Rebecca Bace Pioneer Award for Defensive Security"
.
O'Reilly Media
. Retrieved
2022-01-21
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
"SWSIS - CRA-WP"
. Retrieved
2022-01-21
.
External references
[
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