John Walsh

John Walsh

Greater Boston
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About

A seasoned professional with a rare mix of technical, marketing, development, business…

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Experience

Education

  • Marist College School of Management Graphic

    Marist College School of Management

    • Obtained while working fulltime as a software engineer at IBM.
    • Only 33% of all applicants are accepted into the program.
    • Worked on projects using PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, XML, Javascript, and UML.
    • Designed a distributed information system for a hospital using customer interviews, UML, agile process, prototypes, and ERD diagrams.
    • Learned about Statistical Modeling, Data Warehousing, Finance, Management, Marketing, and other business concepts.

  • -

    Activities and Societies: Graduated a semester early. Worked full-time as a CO-OP at IBM the last year of study. Worked as a JAVA Computer Science teaching assistant. Held lectures every week to go over computer science subjects in more detail and answer questions. Held office hours to help students debug their work or offer extra help.

    • Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) Honor Society.
    • Only 40% of all applicants are accepted into the program.
    • Top 3% of accepted applicants.
    • Graduated one semester early.
    • Worked fulltime as a Software Developer at IBM during the last year of school.
    • Worked on projects using applets, servlets, SMTP, POP3, Lisp, and Haskell.

Publications

  • DevSecOps is an Abomination!

    conjur.org

    Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is one of the most hated and misunderstood monsters of all time. Frankenstein brought his creation into the world without proper forethought or planning. He simply stitched various body parts together to form an uncontrollable abomination. There are similarities here with how DevSecOps is typically created. Frankenstein wannabes simply bolt security on to DevOps or stitch security policies from different tools together. The result is an uncontrollable DevSecOps…

    Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is one of the most hated and misunderstood monsters of all time. Frankenstein brought his creation into the world without proper forethought or planning. He simply stitched various body parts together to form an uncontrollable abomination. There are similarities here with how DevSecOps is typically created. Frankenstein wannabes simply bolt security on to DevOps or stitch security policies from different tools together. The result is an uncontrollable DevSecOps abomination. DevSecOps abominations wreak havoc on operations and development teams daily. The problem is not DevSecOps, it is that people do not understand it or implement it correctly.

    See publication

  • Cybersecurity: When the Outsider Becomes an Insider

    Data Center Knowledge

    The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the oblivious.

    See publication

  • Access Denied: What you need to know to protect the network

    The story below is true in essence, if not in particulars, and it is one that has played out many times across all sectors.

    See publication

  • Hackers Are Now Scanning For SSH Keys To Exploit

    As many of you know, servers running SSH are under constant siege by hackers and botnets, but how are attackers getting into these servers? Servers are typically broken with brute-force password attacks because this is easy when people use passwords like "1234" and "changeMe", but do attackers do when SSH keys are used as credentials instead of passwords? We at SSH Communications Security are well aware of other attack vectors such as SSH keys. The recent SSH key scanning attacks on websites…

    As many of you know, servers running SSH are under constant siege by hackers and botnets, but how are attackers getting into these servers? Servers are typically broken with brute-force password attacks because this is easy when people use passwords like "1234" and "changeMe", but do attackers do when SSH keys are used as credentials instead of passwords? We at SSH Communications Security are well aware of other attack vectors such as SSH keys. The recent SSH key scanning attacks on websites reported by Wordfence are yet another high profile example, but I like to know as much about my advisory as possible.

    See publication

  • A Lesson from Sun Tzu: Is Your Cybersecurity Strategy Sound, or Are You Just Making Noise?

    Ransomware and large-scale DDoS attacks tend to steal the limelight when it comes to cybersecurity. The problem is that,while companies are focused on securing their networks against the latest threat, they tend to overlook a serious underlying flaw that has the potential to cause far greater destruction: SSH keys.

    See publication

  • Cybersecurity from the infrastructure up: Don’t ignore SSH keys

    In the never-ending fight against cybercrime, is your agency focused on strategy or on tactics?

    The federal government is under mandate to keep its own and its citizens’ data secure — that’s a given. What tends to happen, though, is that IT security teams are so focused on defeating the latest malware variant that they pay no heed to a foundational network issue that could be much more serious.

    See publication

  • Weave your cybersecurity tactics into a cohesive strategy

    Recent headlines about cybersecurity threats tend to focus on the latest ransomware, implying that the worst threats are generated externally. Yet what typically goes unnoticed is a fundamental shortcoming in most agencies’ cybersecurity strategy.

    See publication

  • A Cyberattack "Short Story"

    A short story told through the point of view of a CyberAttack.

    It doesn’t matter where the breach came from or how it got in because once inside your business it is able to move from system to system and take whatever it wants, turning what was once an issue on one machine into an enterprise wide crisis.

    See publication

  • Snowden Calls On Employees To Leak Company Secrets

    SSH

    During the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conference, Snowden called on insiders (employees) to spill corporate and government secrets.

    See publication

  • Now Distributed People Can Stop Complaining About z/OS

    SSH

    See publication

  • Identity & Access Management: Don’t get Death Starred!

    SSH

    There is no such thing as a small vulnerability when your business security is at risk.

    See publication

  • Covered by Slashdot

    Slashdot News for Nerds

    "After the Heartbleed fiasco, John Walsh brings attention to the lack of proper manpower and funding to run various open source projects.

    Walsh goes on to ponder security of open source software, the 'many eyes' phenomenon, dedicating people to review code, and quality control."

    See publication

  • Free Can Make You Bleed

    SSH

    I discuss the lack of funding for open source projects and the many reviewers fewer errors argument.

    See publication

  • IBM Tivoli Directory Server for z/OS - Redbooks

    IBM International Technical Support Organization

    A technical overview of the IBM Tivoli Directory Server for z/OS

    I wrote the following sections related to:
    -WLM Workload Manager
    -Opersions Monitor
    -Activity Log

    I reviewed and commented on many other sections of the book as they were being written

    Other authors
    See publication

Patents

  • Prioritization of search requests using search templates

    Issued US US 8185512 B2

    A method, a computer system, and a computer program product that prioritizes search requests to a database directory by assigning the search requests to one or more templates. Attributes of the search requests, such as an IP address, the portion of the database to which the search is constrained, one or more return attributes, the scope of the search, and/or search filters used, are compared with values of those attributes of the templates. The template whose values of the attributes match the…

    A method, a computer system, and a computer program product that prioritizes search requests to a database directory by assigning the search requests to one or more templates. Attributes of the search requests, such as an IP address, the portion of the database to which the search is constrained, one or more return attributes, the scope of the search, and/or search filters used, are compared with values of those attributes of the templates. The template whose values of the attributes match the values of the attributes in the search request is selected. This template has a template identifier that is associated with a transaction name of a work unit enclave. The search request is then associated with the work unit enclave and the operating system of the computer system will execute the search request in accordance with the performance goals and priority of the service class into which the work unit enclave is assigned. Process steps include creating a search template if none exist, and configuring a database server to assign a transaction name to search requests based on attributes and their values of the search request and then associating that transaction name with a transaction name of the work unit enclave.

    Other inventors
    • barb maslak
    • kim worm
    • Richard Joseph Brodfuehrer
    See patent

Projects

  • • L3 customer service team lead in addition to software engineer role.

    -

    • Communicated with customers to determine the problem and customer impact.
    • Insured 100% of target dates were met.

  • • Worked on the IBM JAVA cryptography security provider for z/OS.

    -

    • Verified defects and created test cases using JAVA, JUnit, and shell script.

  • At Marist: Designed an Information System based on customer requirements.

    -

    Used agile development to designed a distributed information system for a hospital using customer interviews, UML, agile process, prototypes, and ERD diagrams.

  • Common Criteria (CC) representative in addition to software engineer role for z/OS LDAP.

    -

    • Attended CC meetings to determine potential impact to the product.
    • Updated code to comply with most current CC standards.

  • Debugged and fixed Kerberos cross-platform defect with MS Active Directory

    -

    • Used TCP/IP packet trace to debug the problem.
    • Worked directly with Microsoft to determine which product was in error.
    • Consulted the LDAP RFC to verify the problem was with z/OS LDAP.

  • Developed Activity Log pattern filter to improve customer usability

    -

    • Wrote a patent publication to protect IBMs IP rights.
    • Used URL filter matching to save valuable log space.
    • Improved performance by only recording records after the transactions complete.

  • Developed DoS and failover support to prioritize transactions within the server for z/OS LDAP

    -

    • Used thread pools to improve performance by 5%.
    • Lowered the priority of denial-of-service (DoS) attack requests to reduce outages.
    • Provided failover support for the cloud by reducing traffic to unhealthy servers.
    • Learned complicated WLM concepts on the job to finish on schedule with quality.
    • Minimized linked list write lock calls to improve performance and reduce bottlenecks.

  • Developed internal memory trace and FFDC support to reduce debug time in the field for z/OS LDAP.

    -

    • Identified key trace points to always be traced to improve debug time in the field.
    • Wrote stubs in C/C++ to drop down into ASM and call 31/64 bit APIs.
    • Wrote tool to put trace data in human readable format.
    • Wrote code to handle settings for internal memory.

  • Developed IPv6 support and improved the front-end network layer for z/OS LDAP.

    -

  • Developed Operations Monitor support on schedule with quality for z/OS LDAP

    -

    • Worked directly with UBS to determine their requirements.
    • Grouped client transactions into patterns to analyze the server work load.

  • ICSF API implementation for z/OS LDAP.

    -

    • Team leader and mentor for an execution team in China.
    • Used agile process and functioned as the SCRUM master.

  • Rewrote the z/OS Firewall GUI using JAVA, Java Swing, JavaBeans, and AUIML/PDML

    -

    • Learned about a new IBM proprietary tool to get the job done on schedule.
    • Used event-driven programming (EDP).

Test Scores

  • C++ Prove it! Skills Test

    Score: 98% top 10%

    The test score is based on time and accuracy. I completed in less than a minute for each question and only got one question wrong. I ranked among the top 10% of people who have taken the test.

    Prove it! by Kenexa is a trusted skills testing company that provides employers the power to identify and select the most talented candidates and employees.

    Test Description
    This C++ Programming test is designed to assess a test taker's knowledge and understanding of core C++ concepts…

    The test score is based on time and accuracy. I completed in less than a minute for each question and only got one question wrong. I ranked among the top 10% of people who have taken the test.

    Prove it! by Kenexa is a trusted skills testing company that provides employers the power to identify and select the most talented candidates and employees.

    Test Description
    This C++ Programming test is designed to assess a test taker's knowledge and understanding of core C++ concepts. The assessment focuses on a number of topics including the evaluation of C++ syntax and code, program structure, C++ operators and keywords, and C++ object-oriented programming. This assessment is appropriate for test takers with a year or more experience working with and coding C++.

Organizations

  • Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) Computer Science Honor Society

    Member

    - Present

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