The Security Sentinels

Here are the tales of three trailblazers whose work in computer security and forensics have helped shape modern practices.

By Deborah Radcliff

April 8, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - As far back as the 1970s, three women began preparing the world for the havoc about to be unleashed by networked computing. From their humble origins in law enforcement and academia, their influence on computer security practices has spread to government and private sector alike - despite the fact that two of the women had virtually no IT or scientific backgrounds.

These security pioneers include Martha Stansell-Gamm, a former U.S. Air Force judge advocate who started an arduous fight against breast cancer as she took over leadership of the then 8-year-old Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

While developing the DOJ's forensics procedures for search and seizure of electronic evidence, Stansell-Gamm crossed paths with Raemarie Schmidt, who developed digital forensics procedures for Wisconsin's branch of the DOJ. Schmidt's work helped set the standard for computer forensics now used by law enforcement agencies around the nation.

And there's Dorothy Denning, a distinguished computer science professor at Georgetown University in Washington, whose writings have set the stage for information security practitioners for the past 27 years.

Fight of Her Life

Martha Stansell-Gamm, Chief of Intellectual Property and Computer Crime at the DOJ

WHO IS SHE?

Martha Stansell-Gamm

Position:
Chief, Intellectual Property and Computer Crime, DOJ

Education:
Phi Beta Kappa, DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.; law degree, Georgetown University; master's in international law, Harvard University

Claims to fame:

Helped shape amendments to the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Group chairwoman and editor, Federal Guidelines for Searching and Seizing Computers, 1994

U.S. representative in Council of Europe's Cybercrime Treaty, 1992-2001

Coordinated the DOJ's participation in many high profile investigations, starting with the investigation that landed computer cracker Kevin Mitnick behind bars in February 1995

For eight years, Stansell-Gamm partnered with her department chief, Scott Charney, to grow the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section of the DOJ. Logically, Stansell-Gamm was the best choice to fill Charney's shoes when he left the department in 1999. But the same week she learned of her promotion, she received news of a different sort: She was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.

The department was already smarting from the loss of its founder, and Stansell-Gamm worried about what would happen to her unit during this leadership vacuum.

"All I could do is put one foot in front of the other, count on the section to do right by me and to do right by our mission," she says. "Everyone just handled it. They jumped into unfinished, high-level projects they had no experience with and took over what needed to be done."

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

Xerox

Win a color printer!

By using solid ink technology only from Xerox, you could save up to 65% by printing color for the cost of black and white. Enter for a chance to WIN a PhaserTM 8860 network color printer!

Microsoft

Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 today.

Save time and mitigate security risk. Deploy it now.

Sybase

NEXT-GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORMS

In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

White Papers & Webcasts

Sustaining SOX Compliance: Best Practices to Mitigate Risk, Automate Compliance, and Reduce Costs
Since the adoption of SOX, much has been learned about IT compliance. Discover how to make SOX efforts more effective in "Sustaining Sox...

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

IDC White Paper: CCM for IT Compliance and Risk Management
Learn from industry analysts how IT organizations are using configuration management to meet compliance requirements and instill best practices. Find out how these...

Best Practices for Managing Business Risks from the Use of IT
(Source: Symantec) Based on exhaustive benchmarks conducted by the IT Policy Compliance, this session highlights the relationship between business risks and use of...

Keep it Clean: Maintaining the Integrity of your CMDB through Change Detection
Learn how configuration drift can challenge configuration management database (CMDB) integrity and how a configuration audit tool and an effective change management process...

Managing And Protecting Your Ever Increasing Mobile Assets
(Source: Absolute Software) Your users are becoming more mobile each day. This is great for productivity - yet challenging for IT control. Natalie...

The Tripwire HIPAA Solution: Meeting the Security Standards Set Forth in Section 164
HIPAA requires businesses that handle personal health information (PHI) to set up strong controls to ensure the security and integrity of that information....

Sun OpenSSO Enterprise Webinar
(Source: Sun) This webinar replay discusses Sun OpenSSO Enterprise innovation--the single, open-source solution that helps your business solve the challenges around internal access...

Configuration Assessment: Choosing the Right Solution
Configuration assessment lets businesses proactively secure their IT infrastructure and achieve compliance with important industry standards and regulations. Learn why configuration assessment is...

Agile Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for Rapid ROI
(Source: IBM) Content rich business processes are a core feature of daily operations at just about any organization today. Very often these essential...

All White Papers | All Webcasts