Jeff Moss

Country:	USA
Website:	[www.blackhat.com www.blackhat.com]
LinkedIn:	[Jeff Moss Jeff Moss]
Twitter:	@thedarktangent
Currently ICANN Staff

Jeffery Moss is VP and Chief Security Officer of ICANN and the founder and director of Black Hat and DEFCON, a global technical security conference and a hacker conference respectively. He is also an Advisor at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. In October 2013 he announced that he would be stepping down from his position at ICANN at the end of 2013.

Career History

Jeff is known in the Internet community as a hacker and he uses The Dark Tangent as an alias. In 1992, he established DEFCON, a hacker community that is believed to have the largest amount of hacker members worldwide.

He worked as a Director at the Secure Computing Corporation and he is one of the individuals who helped establish the Professional Services Departments in the United States, Asia, and Australia. Moss also worked with the Security Division of the Ernst & Young, LLP.

In 1997, he created the Black, a company focused on educating the Internet community with the latest security technology and practices by conducting global conferences. In 2005, he sold the company to CMP Media LLC, a technology publishing and a subsidiary of United Business Media based in UK. Moss continued to manage Black Hat and he joined CMP media as Director.

Mr. Moss was appointed by the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council as Advisor in 2009. As member of the Advisory Council, he provides security advice and recommendations to Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Involvement with ICANN

On April 28, 2011, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers appointed Moss as Vice-President and Chief Security Officer to lead the risk management effort of the internet governing body. According to ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom, Moss has an in-depth knowledge to combat cyber threats and other members of the ICANN Board of Directors also expressed their approval to his appointment. They emphasized that he is an ideal person to achieve ICANN's security agenda.

Jeff's first meeting as VP and Chief Security Council was on June 22, 2011 during the ICANN Security, Stability and Resiliency Briefing held during ICANN 41 in Singapore.

Video Interview on TAS Technical Failure

During an interview with Brad White, ICANN Director of Global Media Affairs, Jeff confirmed that TLD Application System (TAS) was not hacked. He explained that they analyzed all the logs and evaluated all indicators such as unusual intrusion or unusual network activity but they didn't find anything. He emphasized that shutting down the system is the safest thing to do. He described that the technical failure was a little complicated wherein in some instances the file names and user names of other applicants just appeared on the screen of users who previously deleted a file. Jeff explained that the users can only see that file names and user names of other applicants but they cannot open the file and read its content. Jeff said that the problem has been corrected and they are still analyzing all the system logs to identify those who were affected by the technical glitch. Moss is confident that no application was compromised. For more information regarding the TAS technical failure, please watch the interview.

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Presentations

• Understanding Cyber Threats- National Homeland Defense Foundation
• An Inside Look at the Hacker Community- DHS/SRI Infosec Technology Transition Council, June 2010
• Why I don't trust anything- acm.org Leet conference, April 2010
• Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Challenge, March 2010
• Attribution and identity in Cyberspace" IT Security Entrepreneur Forums, March 2010
• Evolving Security Threats: A Hackers Perspective- NSA IAD National Conference, March 2011

Educational Background

• BA in Criminal Justice- Gonzaga University
• University of Dayton School of Law

Top-Level Domain