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Aaron Turner

IANS Faculty

    Aaron is a three-decade veteran of the cybersecurity community, having worked on projects covering every aspect of the industry, from helping build security technologies while at Microsoft to his work on offensive cyber projects for the U.S. government. He has spent the last 15 years on a series of cybersecurity startups, building technologies and developing companies to help teams solve some of the toughest cybersecurity problems.

    Expertise
    • Identity & Access Management (IAM)
    • Applied Machine Learning
    • Mobile Device Security
    • Embedded System Vulnerabilities
    • International Cybersecurity Risk Management

    Achievements & Contributions

    • Congressional witness to help set policy for US critical infrastructure protection
    • Winner of SC Media's 2019 Top Executive Leaders of the Last 30 Years award
    • Information security leader for the Government of Luxemborg’s Technoport® business incubation program
    • Testified before the US House of Representatives to help shape national critical infrastructure protection strategy in 2007
    • Interviewed for NBC Washington News and AP News on cellular network vulnerabilities
    • VP of Security Research and Development at Verifone after 2015 Terreo acquisition
    • Former Co-Founder and CEO of Terreo, an IoT security company focused on credit card skimming detection
    • Former Co-Founder and CEO of RFinity, a mobile payment technology company that was eventually sold to a global mobile network operator in 2010
    • Former Security Strategist at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory investigating the impact of system vulnerabilities in commodity software on public utilities funded by the DHS, DOE, and DOD. He was on the team which conducted the ‘Aurora’ attack against a simulated power grid.
    • Founding Member of many Microsoft information security teams (1999-2006) and coordinated field security testing of Microsoft technologies such as Active Directory, SQL Server, Exchange Server, BitLocker, Windows Update, and Windows Firewall.
    • Recognized by Bill Gates for technical excellence and leadership during security incidents involving Microsoft technologies in 2000 and 2003

    Certifications & Credentials

    • JD Candidate – Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University
    • BA, Spanish Linguistics – Brigham Young University

    Hobbies & Fun Facts

    In his free time, Aaron enjoys restoring 1960's split-window VW buses and arranging and recording vocal music with his brothers and daughters. He has completed several Cordon Bleu culinary education programs and volunteers as a Spanish translator for immigration court proceedings. He is an avid traveler, having visited over 80 countries around the world.