Photo by Rebecca Walden.
Bespectacled, tall and inquisitive looking, Gary Warner exhibits every bit of the collegiate professor persona you’d expect. Less expected? The fact that he counts the FBI, the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security among his clients. He operates from a facility recently overhauled by Facebook – with funding they received from a summary judgment against cyber criminals, thanks to the advanced security work conducted by Warner and his malware analysis team.
During his Feb. 10 presentation at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Warner captivated the audience with several stories about how his team has engaged with national and international law enforcement to outfox some of the world’s most aggressive and elusive cyber criminals. He also revealed some of the ethical dilemmas that arise in his work, one of which is the concern that through the courses he teaches on this subject at UAB, he may be training some who will go on to conduct cybercrime themselves.
“This came up during an NSA event I attended, and I asked for guidance on it,” said Warner. “The gentleman I spoke to asked me how many American students I typically have in my class, which at that time was around 38. He then asked me how many international students I have, which averages around six. His final advice to me was to keep at it. At that rate, as long as I am training six times as many of us as I am them, particularly when the talent pool for this field is in such a deficit, I should keep doing it.”
Citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, which puts cyber IT security at a 490% manpower gap, Warner added that he’s actively looking for talented, highly engaged undergraduates, and in some cases high school students, interested in gaining exposure to the field via his lab this summer. He cited the pay at $800 per week, and encourages those who think they have the attributes and aptitude for this type of experiential summer learning experience to contact him via email: gar@uab.edu
“Many of my students have gone on to work in this field within the government, at corporations like Microsoft, and in finance,” he said.
Warner’s presentation concluded with numerous questions from the audience, not the least of which was personal protection. Specifically, audience members showed concern about how to best protect themselves from the kinds of stealth spam and malware programs that operate undetected.
Besides recommending a rock solid backup program and a hybrid anti-malware combination of free and licensed software (he was clear that neither are 100 percent effective on their own), Warner was blunt.
“It’s what we’re working on in the lab right now,” he said, adding that to date, there is no absolute way to completely eliminate the risk of being a victim of cybercrime. “One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was to tell a Chief of Police that he had to pay money to a Russian cyber-criminal to get his files back.”
The Chamber’s monthly luncheon series will reconvene on Mar. 10 with guest speaker John Norris, an economist with Oakworth Capital.
