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Deron Grzetich – Guy Who Registered the Domain Name
In addition to being the guy who registered the domain name for this site and occasionally posting an article Deron is a senior manager/director (use whichever you think is cooler sounding) in the Information Protection – IT Advisory practice at the consulting firm of KPMG and Adjunct Faculty at DePaul University teaching graduate-level network security and information security management courses. His duties at the consulting firm include assisting organizations in building effective information security programs, access governance and IdM implementations, and serving as the national practice leader for incident response and security monitoring. Ever since Deron was little he has had a fascination with breaking into things and received many groundings due to the fact he enjoyed taking random household appliances apart just so he could see how they worked. As he moved on to BASIC programming on his Apple IIe he started his foray into the world of security by manipulating the phone systems to get free calls and money back from pay phones. Past Bulletin Board Systems, AOL, Fortran90, and early HTML 1.0 programming he found himself drawn to chemistry and math. Unfortunately this led him down the path to a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. During his time at UIC, and while realizing that fluid dynamics and physical chemistry are much harder to understand than computers, he finally sold his old Macs and bought a shiny new Windows 95 system. After landing an IT job at a large IT training firm he finally realized that all those free quarters and half reassembled toasters just might be the correct career path and his true calling. Since that time he has worked as a security consultant for some of the world’s largest companies in the financial services, energy, and health care industries. After the endless travel of a consultant’s life finally broke his spirit he landed at a large Chicago-based law firm where built the information security function from the ground up with his friends from Malos Ojos. Moving his career in a positive direction required a departure from the law firm after 3 years (tear, sniffle) and back into the consulting world where he can again consult some of the world’s largest organizations and hopefully regain his elite status on his favorite airlines and hotels. Deron holds a M.S. in Network Security from DePaul University and countless, yet worthless, certifications like the CISSP, CISM, GCIH….blah blah blah.
Austin Diener – Senior Editor and Photographer
It all started rather inconspicuously on his 15th birthday. A Sony Vaio Pll 300Mhz desktop became the focus of his interests and transformed a bright, well-mannered youth into a curious Internet lurker . Countless hours on AOL in chat rooms reserved for the “elite” fueled his thirst for knowledge and he soon realized visual basic was his gateway to Internet recognition. After establishing himself online as the one, the only, plinx0r, Austin decided to continue the consumption of computer related topics by attending the University of Kentucky where Information Systems and Computer Science became the focus of his studies. Soon, he landed a network engineer position at a fortune 500 company. It was here that Austin chose to pursue his interests in routing, firewalls, switches, and load balancers (thanks Cody). Influenced by his need to comprehend the totality that is the Internet, Austin up and moved to Chicago to attend DePaul’s masters program. Excelling in the program proved useful as Austin’s professor recommended him for an internship position at Malos-ojos headquarters…which, after proving himself was given a full time spot on the roster. And like for(int i=0; i<=greatSuccess;i++){}, Austin continues on towards great success. He now works again with some of the hooligans from Malos Ojos at KPMG LLP in a consulting capacity.
Art Chaisiriwatanasai – Chief Blogger
Hailing from the mean streets of Niles, Illinois, and the even meaner streets of Internet Relay Chat (IRC), comes the phenomenon that is Art Chaisiriwatanasai. Art was introduced to hacking at the tender age of 12, when he learned he could lock up people’s Winblowz (kekeke) boxes using a little app known as WinNuke ’95. He also joined a 435 eggdrop botnet that allowed him to unleash the fury that is the ICMP flood. When “firewalls” and “broadband” were introduced and this was no longer a viable option, Art’s thirst for knowledge and curiosity of people’s browsing habits led him to the holy grail of script kiddies, cDc’s BackOrifice. While Art will neither confirm nor deny any allegations of activity using this program, he will readily admit that good times were had. Eventually, Art ended up at DePaul University majoring in Network Technologies. He even got to deliver his graduating class’s commencement speech, an honor that he attributes to daily exercise, eating healthy, and living the thug life. Art’s first job out of college was with a large consulting firm, where he learned a few things about hacking that surprisingly did not involve the likes of WinNuke or BackOrifice. This is where he was introduced to fellow Malos Ojoers Deron and Adam. Throughout his rockstar-esque three year tenure, Art has consulted for some very large companies in many different industries and has witnessed where many security teams have fallen by the wayside. Art left consulting to join Adam, Deron, and Austin at the law firm and put his money where his audit findings were….but then he moved back into consulting and now works at KPMG LLP as an information security professional in the Information Protection – IT Advisory practice. Art currently holds many wonderful certifications: CISSP, CIPP, and GCFA.
Adam Arceneaux – The Closer
Raised in the swamps and backwaters of Louisiana, Adam realized his love for computers at a young age when playing his first game of Sopwith from a 5.25″ floppy drive. He was a computer aficionado from the start and became the in-house expert for his family and friends. After a brief stint as an assistant manager at a skating rink (which included laser tag, an arcade, and food court) he decided to begin his real career by heading off to Notre Dame to pursue a degree in Management Information Systems. He worked on campus in the IT field, using the money he made to buy more computer gadgets. Upon graduation he left for the big city of Chicago where he joined up with a rag-tag security consulting crew. He spent two years traveling the world, breaking into computer systems and physical locations, stealing bits and bytes of data. During this time he also obtained many fancy certifications including CISSP, GCIH, and GCFW. After defeating many client networks, Adam became disenchanted with the darker side of security and wanted to do some good for a change. He headed over to the law firm down the street where he spends his time analyzing risk, wasting time with the other hooligans from Malos Ojos, and implementing new technologies to help protect the firm from the person he used to be. After that mission was complete Adam decided to move back down south to once again protect organizations and ride on his swamp boat.
Luke Flatgard – Security Intern 4 Life
Do you like dinosoars? I do, rawr. Well, Luke is now a full time analyst at the law firm, so we need a better tag line for him 🙂
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