Phillip Porras

Phillip Porras
Fields Information security
Institutions The Aerospace Corporation
SRI International
Alma mater University of California, Irvine
Known for Conficker analysis
Notable awards 2013 SRI Fellow
Website
www.csl.sri.com/users/porras/

Phillip A. Porras is a computer scientist and security researcher known for his work combating the Conficker worm. Porras leads the Internet Security Group in SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory.

He was previously a manager of the Trusted Computer Systems Department of The Aerospace Corporation. Porras holds 12 U.S. patents, and was named an SRI Fellow in 2013.[1]

Education

Porras attended the University of California, Irvine.

Career

Porras was an author of patents involved in the 2008 case SRI International, Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, Inc..[2]

During the Conficker worm's initial attack, Porras was running a honeypot and was one of the first security researchers to notice it; and was part of the "Conficker Cabal" that helped combat the worm.[3][4] Porras' team in SRI published an extensive analysis of the worm.[5] In 2010, Porras was a co-author of BLADE, a collaboration between SRI and Georgia Tech researchers designed to prevent drive-by download malware attacks.[6][7][8]

Awards and memberships

Porras was named an SRI Fellow in 2013 for his long-term work in information security and malware analysis, and his recent research on OpenFlow.[9]

References

  1. "Our People: Phillip Porras". SRI International. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  2. Phillip Porras. "Patent Defense". SRI International. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  3. Bowden, Mark (2012-02-18). "War of the cyber worm: the most destructive attack on the internet". The Guardian. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  4. Bowden, Mark (2010-05-11). "The Enemy Within". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  5. Phillip Porras, Hassen Saidi, Vinod Yegneswaran (2009-03-19), An Analysis of Conficker, SRI International, retrieved 2009-03-29
  6. Bright, Peter (2010-10-06). "Drive-by malware blocked by new BLADE software". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  7. "BLADE: Secure Defense for Network Browsers". SRI International. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  8. Krebs, Brian (2010-02-22). "Stopping Stealthy Downloads". Technology Review (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  9. "SRI Fellows Awards 2000 - Present". SRI International. Retrieved 2013-02-25.