2004 Women of Influence Award Winners Named

LEADERSHIP While most of Naples, Fla., was fleeing hurricane Ivan on Sept. 8-10, more than 150 women actually flew to the area for Alta Associates’ second annual Executive Women’s Forum to discuss information security, risk management and privacy. The event concluded with the “Women of Influence” awards, presented by Alta Associates CEO Joyce Brocaglia and CSO magazine. The award highlights the accomplishments of women who have demonstrated innovation and made a positive difference in the security field. The four winners, each of whom has 20-plus years of experience in the industry, come from the private and public sectors and from the technology industry.

Diana Burke, CISO of the Royal Bank of Canada, is one of the honorees. Burke spearheaded a campaign called “information security is everyone’s business” to increase employee awareness at the bank. She also works to influence government security regulations by her involvement in leading industry groups such as the Canadian Financial Institution, Computer Incident Response Team (CFI-CIRT) and the Global Council of Chief Security Officers. Burke has worked to establish a financial industry and cross-industry Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) in Canada, in participation with government, to better communicate Internet threats to members of the critical infrastructure industries. These ongoing discussions were influential in the government’s establishment of daily alerts and advisories, and an enhanced warning system for critical infrastructure members.

Other winners include:

Catherine Meadows, senior researcher in computer security at the Naval Research Laboratory’s Center for High Assurance Computer Systems in Washington, D.C. Meadows is the principal developer of the NRL protocol analyzer, which was the first software tool to find flaws in cryptographic protocols. Meadows is also a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force, an international community of network designers, vendors and researchers working on the evolution of the Internet architecture and its smooth operation.

Linda McCarthy, executive security adviser at antivirus software vendor Symantec. In her business development role, she has created Symantec Press and the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report.

Diana Neuman, vice president of engineering and cofounder of network security software vendor Seclarity. She received recognition for managing the development of more than a dozen commercial security products.