Dr. Eugene H. Spafford
Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science
Eugene H. Spafford ("Spaf") is a professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. He is also a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (courtesy appointment), Philosophy (courtesy), a professor of Communication (courtesy), and is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. CERIAS is a campus-wide multi-disciplinary Center, with a broadly-focused mission to explore issues related to protecting information and information resources.
Spaf has written and spoken extensively about information security, cybercrime, software engineering, and professional ethics. He and his students are credited with a number of security "firsts," including the first open security scanner, the first widely-available intrusion detection tool, the first integrity-based control tool, the first multistage firewall, the first formal bounds on intrusion detection, the first reference model of firewalls, and some of the first work in vulnerability classification databases. Much of the current security product industry can therefore be viewed as based, in part, on his past research; some of his ideas directly led to the establishment of two commercial firms: Tripwire and Signacert. His current research is directed towards issues of public policy and information security, architecture and construction of highly-secure systems, and cyberforensic technologies.
Dr. Spafford is a Fellow of the ACM, Fellow of the AAAS, and Fellow of the IEEE. In 2000, he was named as a CISSP, honoris causa. He was the year 2000 recipient of the NIST/NCSC National Computer Systems Security Award, generally regarded as the field's most significant honor in information security research. In 2001, he was named as one of the recipients of the "Charles B. Murphy" award and named as a Fellow of the Purdue Teaching Academy, and in 2003 was named to the "Book of Great Teachers" -- thus receiving all three of Purdue University's highest awards for outstanding teaching. In 2005 he was named as a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Technical Achievement Award. In 2006, he received the ACM SIGSAC's "Outstanding Contribution" award, and in 2007 he was named as the recipient of the prestigious ACM President's Award.
More information may be found at <http://spaf.cerias.purdue.edu/>.
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