Security consultant Dino Dai Zovi hacked Macs and co-authored a book on how to secure them. Tillmann Werner researched ways to detect the Conficker worm on infected networks and advocated an offensive approach to dealing with the threat. Shawn Henry chased cybercriminals during his 23-year career at the FBI. And, Dan Guido teaches at NYU Poly and espouses a "Know Your Attacker" philosophy.
All four have left previous positions and joined startups that are creating services and products that focus on ways to make attacks more painful for the attackers. Rather than continue finding vulnerabilities or pointing out ways attackers can infiltrate networks, groups of well-known researchers are increasingly coming together to find better ways to identify and hinder attackers.
"I think that smart security folks intuitively understand what most large businesses have been learning the hard way -- that most of what the security industry works on has little impact on the ability for attackers to achieve their goals," Guido says.
