Johnston, Warner receive award for Argonne’s VAT

Roger Johnston

Argonne Nuclear Engineering Division researchers Roger Johnston and Jon Warner have received the 2013 CSO40 Award from CSO (Chief Security Officer) Magazine for outstanding business value and security thought leadership in their work with Argonne’s Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT).

In their entry, Johnston and Warner discussed various projects the VAT has done over the years -- emphasizing VAT “firsts.”

VAT researchers spend their workdays devising and demonstrating ways to defeat a wide variety of security devices, systems, and programs, ranging from electronic voting machines and global positioning systems (GPS) to nuclear safeguards programs and biometrics-based access control. This involves analyzing the security features, reverse-engineering the technology or security strategy, figuring out how to beat the security, demonstrating attacks, and then devising effective countermeasures. The team’s “think-like-the-bad-guy” approach routinely results in the discovery of surprising, easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities that are often overlooked by security managers, designers and manufacturers, as well as other vulnerability assessors using more conventional or formalistic techniques.

An independent panel of security experts selected from among the Award entries, and CSO Magazine editors chose the winners from the panel's recommendations. The CSO40 Awards recognize 40 security projects and initiatives that have delivered groundbreaking business value through the innovative application of risk and security concepts and technologies. Johnston and Warner will be recognized at an awards dinner and ceremony at the CSO40 Security Confab and Awards conference, April 2-3, 2013, Atlanta, Georgia. CSO provides news, analysis and research on a broad range of security and risk management topics.

View the VAT brochure >>

February 2013