The Computer Security Institute has, for the first time in its 33 year history, honoured a professional from outside North America with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr Lynas, based in Moira, Northern Ireland, has a global reputation as a security architect, strategist and thought leader who has provided strategic advice to government and industry clients on every continent. He has led hundreds of important local and global information security projects ranging from high profile banking and financial sector initiatives, through internet voting for federal elections, to managing risk to the homeless, and creating a professional body to govern the industry and assess the competency of information security practitioners.

Mr Lynas is also the founder and chair of COSAC, widely regarded as the worlds premier annual forum for innovation in the field of information security. The COSAC event is renowned for regularly rocking the security world with timely reassessments of fundamental security assumptions and principles such as with the world premier of The Bunratty Attack. Michael Corby, Senior Director, Gartner, described COSAC as A living, breathing community of the elite, dedicated to inspiring and improving the profession and to serving the world.

Mr Lynas is perhaps most widely known for his work with John Sherwood and Andy Clark to create SABSA, the most advanced methodology for developing Enterprise Security Architectures, and its associated education and competency based architects certification programme. Professor Brian Collins, Vice President of the BCS and Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Transport, said of SABSA This work should be on the desk of every CIO, ICT Infrastructure Director, and Application Development Director.

David Lynas is co-author of the definitive reference work Enterprise Security Architecture: A Business Driven Approach used by professionals and organisations world-wide. In constant demand as a speaker, his seminars and plenary conference sessions over the last 3 years have attracted a world-wide audience of nearly 15,000 business executives and IT, Security, Risk and Audit managers.

He said of the award, It is a great privilege for me to join the list of only 10 people to have received this honour in 33 years. It is especially important coming as it does from CSI which throughout that time has, with distinction, continuously served the global security community with member services, publications, conferences and professional training while so many others have come and gone.

In presenting the award, CSI Director Robert Richardson said, This award is something we give only when we believe someone has become not just an important contributor, but also a clear leader to the security community. David Lynas has achieved that status, particularly with his vital contributions to the creation of the SABSA standards and his tireless development of the COSAC security conference. In honouring David Lynas we at Computer Security Institute are simply acknowledging what his colleagues already know about his importance to the field.

[I second Robert Richardson's sentiments entirely. We have written about SABSA and COSAC in ISB for many years in recognition of the importance of both, and recommended both as representative of the state of the art of our profession, head and shoulders above any competition. I attend as many COSAC events as possible and the things I have learnt there have been instrumental in forming my understanding of information security, including the first presentations by John Sherwood of what was to become SABSA, and Vince Gallo's Bunratty Attack presentation. In fact, all the way up to this year's presentation about VoIP security by Andy Clark. David Lynas has richly deserved this honour, being in the centre of a group of people driving our field through the years, names like Eugene Schultz, John Sherwood, Vince Gallo, Andy Clark and some others, most of them to be found at the annual COSAC (and as observant readers may have noticed, on the editorial board of Information Security Bulletin). Congratulations! --Ed ].

Related links: (Open in a new window.)
www.cosac.net
www.sabsa.org
www.gocsi.com

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