About the Author
Alex Noordergraaf has over 10 years experience in the areas of computer and network security. As the Security Architect of the Enterprise Server Products (ESP) group at Sun Microsystems, he is responsible for providing technical leadership to define the security of Sun's next generation servers while addressing security for current products. He is the driving force behind the very popular freeware Solaris Security Toolkit. Prior to his role in ESP, he was a Senior Staff Engineer in the Enterprise Engineering (EE) group of Sun Microsystems, where he developed, documented, and published security best practices through the Sun BluePrints program. Published topics include: Sun Fire_ Midframe 15K system security, secure N-tier environments, Solaris OE minimization, Solaris OE network settings, and Solaris OE security. He has co-authored two Sun BluePrint books Jumpstart Technology - Effective Use in the Solaris Operating Environment and Enterprise Security Solaris Operating Environment, Security Journal.
Prior to his role in EE, he was a Senior Security Architect with Sun Professional Services where he worked with many Fortune 500 companies on projects that included security assessments, architecture development, architectural reviews, and policy/procedure review and development. He developed and delivered an enterprise security assessment methodology and training curriculum to be used worldwide by SunPS. His customers included major telecommunication firms, financial institutions, ISPs, and ASPs. Before joining Sun, Alex was an independent contractor specializing in network security. His clients included BTG, Inc. and Thinking Machines Corporation.
NOTE
Alex Noordergraaf would like to acknowledge Keith Watson's contributions to previous versions of this article. In 2002, Keith Watson left Sun and returned to the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue University.