ABOUT CYBER DEFENSE CENTER
OVER 10 YEARS OF PROTECTION
ASCEND
The CYBER DEFENSE CENTER ASCEND program offers the world's leading and most trusted OT cyber security certifications. Improve critical infrastructure cyber security capabilities through immersive training, cutting edge certifications, scholarships, secure workforce awareness training, deployment assurance, and academic collaboration with universities to innovate cybersecurity education. Through our ASCEND program, you and your company will gain a force advantage in defending critical infrastructure. You will also take a leading role in defending your nation's critical infrastructure while improving OT cyber security for companies within your community.
DEFEND
The CYBER DEFENSE CENTER DEFEND programs provide wartime preparation to critical infrastructure organizations and operational cybersecurity capabilities to rural and municipal utilities and communities. Our DEFEND program harnesses ASCEND students paired with subject matter experts within the cyber security community to provide defense improvement against emerging cyber threats and ongoing technical assistance for what makes, connects, moves, and powers our world. This community and civil defense capability works to force multiply cybersecurity efforts to protect, defend, respond, and recover from cyber threats and attacks.
ORIGIN STORY
The CYBER DEFENSE CENTER celebrated 10 years of public/private sector partnership collaboration is 2022 by opening our research doors to the public. What we intend to do over the next decade for the community is amazing. Become a part of CYBER DEFENSE CENTER today.
The CYBER DEFENSE CENTER was founded by Erin Patrick Owens in 2011 in Dallas Texas. The initiative recognized the need to create a center of excellence on cyber security that would initially benefit state and local government by partnering with private sector professionals. At the time, Mr. Owens was a ranking member of the North Texas Crime Commission Cyber Committee and President of the North Texas Infragard public/private sector partnership, a FBI cyber outreach program. Mr. Owens actively served as a community organizer on several similar mutual protection initiatives including the creation of multiple public/private sector partnerships aligned with the National Infrastructure Protect Plan and Presidential Policy Directives 7 and 21 such as chartering the Regional Consortium Coordinating Council (RC3), RPCFirst, dfwFIRST, HoustonFIRST, serving as an advisor to ISACs, Fusion Centers, and even directly leading or implementing regional initiatives for Sector Coordinating Councils (SCC) such as the FSSCC and Government Coordinating Councils (GCC) such as FBIIC initiatives such as rolling out Government Emergency Telecommunications (GETS), Wireless Priority Service (WPS), and Telecommunication Service Priority (TSP) for the financial sector for the Hurricane Region after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. As these various national and regional partnerships developed and evolved, it became apparent that there was a strategic gap in cyber defense coordination. This led Mr. Owens to the idea and creation of the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER which was filed as a non-profit by Mr. Owens in the state of Texas and first introduced to the RC3 in 2012.
LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD
In 2012, the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER began delivering our community mission, to provide mutual aid to local and regional agencies in need through a private sector partnership. This initial program was available through our first university partner, University of Texas Dallas (UTD). Upon our launch, the CENTER was immediately called in to assist in the largest fraud case in history for healthcare. The CENTER also took on a research mandate and discovered a rather large software configuration weakness in a major cyber defense software solution in our first year. By 2013, the CENTER was in full operation with several active partner projects and a staff of full-time employees and students participating though the University. The demands on the CENTER began to strain resources so the founder/s split the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER into 2 separate mission focused organizations. The CYBER DEFENSE CENTER became a national research organization and CYBER DEFENSE LABS became the University aligned community partner organization. CYBER DEFENSE CENTER relocated the national headquarters to Colorado in 2014.
Over ten years later, the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER has gained national attention and recognition for the work we have done. We have partnered with universities and served several companies and communities along the way. We have performed research with counties and influenced election process changes where risk was observed and reported. We have collaborated with researchers on the largest national threat desk in the United States and worked with the largest malware database in the world. We have created threat models for large government agencies and have discovered and reported some of the largest security flaws ever discovered and reported using the rules of responsible disclosure to software manufacturers. We have innovated and tested a holistic approach to cyber security using a reference architecture with 6 active perspectives while evaluating new ways to engage our communities. Finally, we have sponsored and researched emerging technology risks and facilitated CVEs for drones and robotics through our Defcon initiatives and helped companies respond to risk or breaches in innovative ways.
Today, the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER is evolving once again and changing the way we work and the way we engage our community. We are moving from science to applied sciences. We are applying the significant research we have conducted into community programs that will be a revolution in defense. Today, we are opening our doors to members that wish to participate in our mission. To do this, we have initiated 2 new transformational community outreach programs, ASCEND | DEFEND. These new programs are designed to focus on our origin story, the vision we had over 10 years ago when we set forth upon this odyssey as one organization. A vision that would change our collective cyber defense force posture rather than serving individual companies along the way. It is time to take a stand - together. It is time for a defense revolution. It is time to join us in our origin mission. Join the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER today.
LEADERSHIP
CHAIR | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Erin Patrick Owens is the founder and Executive Director for the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER. Mr. Owens modeled the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER based on other public/private sector partnerships that he has founded, led, or participated in. Mr. Owens is a nationally recognized cyber defense leader and strategist with twenty years real world cyber security experience spanning several companies and industries. He has served as the top security leader (CISO) for 12 companies and has successfully delivered nearly 100 security transformation projects including deploying automation systems, operationalizing security initiatives that detect, prevent, and respond to active and potential cyber threats, and responding to major security incidents.
Through the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER and his personal career, he has actively responded to some of the largest breach and fraud cases in recent history and also frequently speaks at national hacking and security conferences on new and innovative ways to defend private sector networks. His security leadership philosophies focus on innovating programs through enablement, empowerment, and value driven programs.
In his tenure with the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER, he has developed many of the battle tested approaches that are now used by the CYBER DEFENSE CENTER services and programs to achieve value in security, balanced security models, reference architectures, and an intelligence driven defense posture.