Alex Kreilein of SecureSet, LLC

The nation’s 9-1-1 infrastructure is changing from PSTN based communications to IP network infrastructure in Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) as supported by the NENA i3 standard. This change brings new functionality and new risks to the service itself, the people who support it, and the citizenry that relies on it.

In an effort to understand the vulnerabilities present in this infrastructure, security researchers must dedicate time and effort to uncovering vulnerabilities now before the standard of NG9-1-1 becomes widely deployed. Supporting this philosophy, SecureSet in consort with NENA, discovered and exploited a critical vulnerability in the system architecture and underlying deployment through collaboration with the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC) at Texas A&M University.

The Next Generation of Emergency Ph0nage was presented this year at DEFCON 24. Alex Kreilein, CTO of SecureSet and an independent security researcher, discusses the vulnerability in the underlying trust models of NG9-1-1 and discusses the multi-layered attack methods employed to prove the consequence of the vulnerability.

Biography:

Alex Kreilein is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SecureSet, which is a Denver, CO based cybersecurity services company. He serves as Chief Technology Officer to the firm and leads the cybersecurity startup accelerator, which makes strategic investments into early state cybersecurity companies. He leads strategic business development efforts, government engagement, vendor relations, and technical security research.

He served as a leading Technology Strategist for the Department of Homeland Security from 2011 to 2015 and was appointed as a Guest Researcher to the National Institute of Standards & Technology from 2013 to 2015. Kreilein supported the development of security strategies and technologies in commercial LTE and NG9-1-1 networks and standards. His work supported commercial solutions for government users in both the civilian and military sectors. He advised the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and engaged in standards development at 3GPP, GSMA, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG). From 2008 to 2011, Kreilein was a Legislative Assistant for Rep. Jane Harman where he was charged with covering technology, telecommunications, cybersecurity and certain national security issues on the House Energy & Commerce and House Homeland Security Committees.

Kreilein holds a MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College and will complete his Ph.D/MS at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science in 2017. His area of research covers the integration of threat intelligence and dark web research into quantitative risk analysis and mitigation methods. While at CU Boulder, Kreilein was the Managing Director of the University of Colorado Boulder Deming Center Venture Fund for two years where he made successful seed investments into early stage technology portfolio companies. 

He is a Member of the Information Systems and Security Association (ISSA), a Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a Member of Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), and an advisory board member to multiple startups in the field of cybersecurity and national security. He serves on multiple boards and technical advisory positions including OWL Cybersecurity, Colorado Cyber, and is the Chair of the Colorado Electronic Frontier Alliance.

Alex Kreilein of SecureSet, LLC

Biography: